


Overly Sour When Raw

by Checkerbox



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Amnesia, M/M, also some foul language, an exploration of the inquisitor and his relationships with the rest of the cast, fic rated for sex and violence, morally ambiguous Inquisitor, the violence is more explicit and frequent than the sex but still both are present
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:28:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 58,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26432671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Checkerbox/pseuds/Checkerbox
Summary: It would be simpler if this actually was the Envy demon, and the real Inquisitor was just locked up somewhere waiting to be found. Then at least they could kill the paranoid, murderous thing in their midst instead of trying to convince it to calm down.Or, a story where Trevelyan gets amnesia and Dorian is forced to evaluate the truth depth of his feeling for the Inquisitor.
Relationships: Male Inquisitor/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 23
Kudos: 66





	1. Warmth in the Cold

**Author's Note:**

> As a warning, this fic is not only extremely, extremely long, but it’s also extremely self-indulgent in many ways. I don’t know if people will particularly enjoy reading it, but I enjoy writing it and when it comes to fanfiction that’s really the most important thing.
> 
> I hoped to start posting this once it was finished, but it’s 59K and only half written and I really want to post the first chapter at least. Think of it as being like some kind of advertisement for what’s to come.

“How many men have you been with?”

From his position in his lap Trevelyan looked up patiently at Dorian as he proceeded to choke on a (badly) peeled grape.

When Dorian had finally managed to get his breathing under control, he said, voice roughened, “What was that you just asked me?”

“I asked you how many men you have been with.”

“Ah. That’s what I thought you said.”

Warm sunlight washed over the both of them as twilight fell, the remains of Trevelyan’s attempt to put up curtains lying on the floor amidst a practical sea of trinkets, knick-knacks, fur rugs, and other gifts that he had not had the good sense to refuse or discard. There was order to the madness, so he had claimed, but Dorian couldn’t see it amidst the hoard. The room looked half its size now that their Inquisitor had been allowed free reign over its decorating, so much so that it was almost certainly intentional. The sprawl of memorabilia had not been this bad when their…relationship began, and it was both a curiosity and a horror to see it progress to such a state.

The pair of them were lain out over the large Marcher-style bed, Dorian reading propped up by pillows and Trevelyan with his head in Dorian’s lap.

He was not reading now. Now his bright green eyes were fixed on Dorian’s face, calm and unrelenting, like an oncoming tidal wave.

“—How many men have _you_ been with?” Dorian countered, setting his book off to the side.

A knowing smile took over Trevelyan’s face. “Not counting you? Two.”

This gave Dorian some slight pause. “—How many _people_ have you been with?”

“Five.”

“ _Fasta vass.”_

“Is it a high number?” He slowly sat up, light amusement twinkling in his features. “Is it a very high number? Is that why you don’t want to tell me?”

“Why do you want to know?” Dorian tried to look put out, but he really couldn’t be. Nervous dread was the only thing he could muster up, and he was far too exhausted from the day’s events to really feel that. “Perhaps I don’t like the look in your eyes when you ask.”

Trevelyan didn’t answer for a moment, eyes rolling back as he gave it some thought. “Who you’ve been with…that has to do with us, doesn’t it? How you look at us. I’m very, very curious about…everything to do with you, you know.” He smiled again, this time snidely, with teeth. They looked sharp from a distance. Up close, merely chipped. “If you don’t want to tell me, I will be more than happy to make my own assumptions.”

Dorian sighed. “Less than everyone seems to think. Enough that I can’t name all of them. Does that satisfy you?”

“No.”

He growled and fell back against the pillows.

Trevelyan crawled up to be next to him, brushing a thumb over his cheek. He was wearing his softer gloves, the ones Dorian refused to admit he liked just to avoid the smug look on his face. “I’ll admit that it’s nothing terribly important, or world shattering. But I think there is value to…to knowing someone’s history. How their past relationships shaped them. Don’t you think?”

“They could hardly be called relationships.”

“Somehow I just can’t believe that you were _that_ callous with every single one.”

He didn’t respond to that immediately, looking up at the ceiling. Several names swirled around in his mind. Some more vivid than others. Some that stabbed him with a bone-deep ache, of loss and longing and feeling like the stupidest man in Minrathous, or Qarinus, or wherever he was.

Despite everything, Trevelyan looked at him with a sense of wonder in his eyes. Held him in such high esteem, such trust. Sometimes it was so easy to believe his protestations, his blunt declarations of feeling, his “I love you” said almost ritually into the evenings now that it was all out in the open. This grand notion of someone who wouldn’t change their mind.

It hurt.

“I’m not ready.”

Disappointment crossed over the man’s features, distinct and clear, and then it was gone. “Oh. Alright. –Let me know when you are. If you are.”

“I shall.” There was a bit of relief at that, even though it came paired with a sting of cowardice. “…What brought all this to mind, hm? --Even if it is some bizarrely twisted and circuitous train of thought, it must have had a starting point.”

Trevelyan grew quiet, looking at the window. “When I was in the war room talking with Leliana earlier a…familiar name popped up.”

A flash of possessiveness, hot and startling, flooded Dorian’s system. Something inside him growled. Outwardly he jeered, pinching Trevelyan’s side, “Oooh, what’s this? Some scandalous romance from your past? Should I be jealous?”

He heard that soft, innocent laughter in his ear, fond and earnest, like cool water. “Nothing so interesting. Just someone I used to know when I was…younger and not as intelligent. Perhaps when _you_ feel more like sharing, I will too.”

“Why you wicked creature. I never thought you capable of such blackmail.”

Trevelyan merely hummed, the sound almost a purr.

Something tangled and uncomfortable lingered in the air afterwards, though perhaps only on Dorian’s end. Many conversations seemed to just stay with him for hours now, little comments he wished he’d made, gestures he wished he’d reciprocated. He was trying, pushing himself to stop listening to the part of him that demanded he keep his feelings, his _weaknesses_ , a secret. But still silence would dog him when he wasn’t expecting it.

“So…what fun little excursion does the spymaster have planned for us tomorrow, hm? You still haven’t told me,” he offered to change the subject.

The mattress dipped as Trevelyan puffed himself up, grinning. “We’re going to _Emprise du Lion_.”

Dorian threw an arm over his face. “Wonderful. I am going to freeze to death.”

“Nonsense.” Suddenly there was a body on top of his, hands braced on either side of his head. “I will keep you warm.”

“Oh is that so?” He snaked his arms around Trevelyan’s waist, forcing a slight smirk as he pulled him down. “And how exactly do you plan to do that, hm?”

“Why, I will bury you in snow, that is how.”

“Sounds counterproductive,” he mused, gripping the hem of Trevelyan’s shirt to hoist it over his head.

“--Snow is actually very good at keeping one warm,” Trevelyan said idly, starting to trace the lines of Dorian’s collar bone as he was undressed.

“Not in the form of a snowball shoved down one’s shirt.”

“Well, not like that, no.”

Dorian propped himself up on his elbow and reached to put a hand around his neck. “Then allow me to provide a counter suggestion.” He pulled Trevelyan down until their faces were flush, easing himself with the delighted hum he felt against his mouth as he did so.

The spent the rest of the evening in each other’s arms, first indulging in each other’s company, and then the luxury that was sleep.

All the while the question never entirely leaving his mind.

As expected, Emprise du Lion was cold.

Dorian had thought himself prepared for the abominable, unbearable conditions of the South and dressed himself accordingly, but he had underestimated just _how_ bitterly frigid the weather actually _was_. He had not been along the first time they ventured out to capture Sahrnia Quarry and the nearby keep, nor had he been present for the little “dragon hunting” excursion that the Iron Bull had somehow roped Trevelyan into hosting once the bridge in the area had been fixed. He’d had only stories and his own memory of the Fereldan Frostback Mountains.

The wind alone nearly cut him into little pieces once they so much as breached the hills.

It was just the five of them in their ragtag crew. Cassandra was marching ahead as was typical for her, knowing well the path the scouts had charted for them through this wasteland. The Iron Bull was taking up the rear as was his preference, keeping an eye on all of them and acting as body guard, in his own way. Dorian was tremendously occupied with freezing to death.

And Trevelyan was in the process of regaling Varric with some gruesome tale about a man being bricked up in a basement.

It was typical on most of their jaunts for him to remain silent and focused, always caught up in either the mission or exploring, to their exasperation, every nook and cranny of the land in hopes of finding some secret treasure. Today, however, he was animate—energy radiated off him in waves as he spoke, hands caught in gesture and voice rising and falling. He was not a storyteller, like Varric. He would drift off into tangents, forget to share details until they were important, stammer and switch words around as his tongue seemed to trip over itself. But he was so engaged and excited when he was talking, even Dorian had a hard time not listening, determined as he was to be miserable.

“…so you could say he was very—”

“If you finish that sentence I can’t guarantee I won’t hit you,” Cassandra interjected suddenly.

Trevelyan’s eyes darted between her and Varric for a moment, wide smile stuck on his face. Dorian could swear he saw Varric give an encouraging nod.

“— _Un_ -Fortunado!” he finished.

True to her word, Cassandra smacked him upside the head.

He’d been like this since they’d arrived. Dorian wasn’t sure what to make of his behavior, whether he was simply bored of inspecting the area around them given it was ground he had tread before, or if something was actively disrupting his ability to focus on the goal at hand. There didn’t seem to be anything particularly noteworthy about this mission, but from the moment they got it, Trevelyan had been oddly wired. A cabal of Red Templars had been making assaults on Suledin Keep, notable only in that there appeared to be some collaboration with Venatori among their ranks—the two groups were constantly in competition with each other for favor from Corypheus, so that was noteworthy in itself.

That, and there was a “familiar name” among them.

Dorian wished very much that he had been present at that war table meeting.

The trees around them became thicker as they traveled, obscuring the looming specter of the chained tower in the distance from view and making the entire area feel darker and more shrouded. Bull grumbled uncomfortably from the back, “Be nice if the trees dropped their leaves like they’re supposed to so we could see better.”

“They’re evergreens, Bull,” Trevelyan said, falling back briefly to walk beside him. “They never drop their leaves. Also, those aren’t leaves.”

“My dearest Cassandra,” Dorian called, interjecting as much bitter sarcasm into his voice as he could muster with the shivering, “Is the enemy camp nearby? How long do you think until it will be acceptable for me to throw fireballs around?”

“How long until I no longer have to listen to your bellyaching?” came the short reply.

“I bet you don’t even know.” He raised his voice. “I bet you’re just leading us in circles until we freeze.”

She turned around with an exasperated snort, walking backwards. “I am following the course that was provided for us. It is not my fault that you are so busy worrying about losing your toes to frostbite that you cannot navigate on your own.”

As he was about to reply he heard, directly next to him, “What happened to the warmer robes I got you?”

Dorian glowered at Trevelyan, voice choppy with embarrassment at how he had jumped, startled. “You know very well what happened to those robes.”

“What?” Then his face lit up. “Oh, right. That was a nice night.”

“Yes, and now I am suffering for it.”

“Hey, at least your boots don’t fill with snow every step you take, Sparkler.”

Dorian glanced over at Varric, saw the way he had to pick up his legs every time he took a step, and allowed himself a small chuckle of amusement. “Ah yes. I suppose I am fortunate that the drifts don’t reach my knees.”

Trevelyan grinned through their conversation like he always tended to, seeming to find a particular delight in watching his travel companions jibe at each other. He made little motions like he wanted to clap, a bounce in his step that kicked little flurries of snow into the air as he walked. “You know, if you’re that opposed to tromping through the snow, Varric, we could always—"

Then, abruptly, he stopped walking, speaking, or emoting entirely, hands still in the air.

The change was so sudden that their little group almost moved on without him. He didn’t react to their questioning glances, head cocked slightly to the side and eyes opened just a bit wider than normal, staring at nowhere.

“Do you hear that?” Trevelyan finally asked.

Dorian was quiet for a moment, but nothing jumped out at him. “Hear what?”

Bull furrowed his brows, glancing around. “Yeah, I do.”

“Hear _what?”_

Cassandra drew her sword as Varric got Bianca up to bear. “We’re being stalked.”

He could have set them all on fire right then and there. “We’re being stalked by _wh_ —Oh. I hear it now.”

Slavering, snapping jaws and deep, rumbling growls.

For all that fuss, he was expecting something more threatening than a pack of wolves. Though the wolves out here in these frozen hills were larger than their lowland cousins. More meat and muscle on them to survive the cold, he figured. Their hides were thicker too, and blended in amidst the snow so that even after identifying the threat, it took a few seconds longer to actually spot them.

“Oh!” As a wolf lunged at him Trevelyan broke into a gleeful smile, leaping back and showering it with a volley of arrows before it could latch onto his throat. “ _Hello!_ ” He then vanished into a flurry of snow—and steam, courtesy of Dorian splashing the area with a healthy blast of Fade fire.

Generally he had come to expect that, when it came to animals, only the desperately hungry or large and territorial would bother to pick fights with such a formidable band as they. The latter must have been the case here, given that these wolves looked well-fed.

An arrow flew out of the darkness and lodged itself right in the wolf’s eye, and it went down. Dorian heard wild, manic laughter, and then suddenly their Inquisitor was back in the fray again. He privately thought to himself that Trevelyan would probably be able to manage killing more than one combatant before being discovered if he didn’t follow up each kill with deranged cackling.

“You’re enjoying yourself an awful lot for how mundane this is,” he shouted, doing a few quick and dirty barrier spells. “I expect this kind of exuberance when we’re dealing with demons.”

“Wolves are fantastic!” Trevelyan continued to dart around the field, yowls accompanying the snap of his bowstring as he targeted the wolves that were too fast for the rest of them. “I’m always telling Solas how much I like that jawbone thing he wears. –Have you ever seen one shaved? Positively monstrous. –That goes double for bears.”

Dorian was in the process of asking when exactly Trevelyan had ever had the opportunity to shave a bear when a much larger wolf, body criss-crossed with scars that made its fur patchy and thin—and yes, it did look significantly more monstrous--slammed against his barrier with a snarl.

An arrow lanced by its head and it pulled back, snarling.

Trevelyan practically bounced into his line of sight. “I like this one! Do you think we can recruit it for the Inquisition, Cassandra?”

The Seeker was too busy with the rest of the pack to answer.

Varric paled. “That thing is infected with red lyrium.”

And so it was. Dorian could hear the toxic whispering of the magic inside it, its red eyes glowing brightly as it darted away from a swing of Bull’s ax. Little shards of crystal had jutted up from its back along the line of its spine, just enough to breach its skin and show through its clear, white fur.

Trevelyan’s quiver was empty, hands grasping at nothing as he reached back for it. Then he was still smiling, but a more desperate note had entered the curve of his lips, teeth bared. “No one touch it! No one get near it.”

Dorian knew what this situation called for. He breathed in deeply, breathed the Fade in and out and felt the warmth rising in his chest. A familiar tingling began to build, energy that had nowhere to go that made his fingers twitch and his hair stand on end.

The infected beast did not wait for him to work his magic, however. It was fast—much faster than the other wolves, deftly maneuvering around Bull’s great swings and the Cassandra’s rigid strikes. Varric managed to strike it—a poisoned bolt that hit it right in the side, something that normally knocked out weaker opponents in as little as a few seconds. It didn’t slow down even a little, instead turning its burning gaze on Varric and lunging.

Before anyone else could intervene, Trevelyan barreled into it, throwing it back with his arms. Or rather, attempting to; for the moment that his arm was near its jaw, it opened its maw and clamped down.

“Oh shit. Fuck. –Fuck!” He tried to wrench his arm free, and failed. “Let go!”

Dorian couldn’t very well throw all of his fire on it now, not when he was liable to burn Trevelyan to a crisp along with it. He was too close for anyone to attack, the monster effectively using him as a human shield as it did its damnedest to rip his arm off.

A different solution, then. Heart in his throat, Dorian closed his eyes and reached out with his magic.

_Ah. There we are._

He felt wisps of the Fade curl around his arms as he summoned, the pull of spirits on his will as he dragged them through. Once, their hunger had been a fearsome thing, a threat on his mind that took all his energy to combat. Now they were like minnows nipping at his heels as he sent them away to the corpses he knew to be nearby. The light that he had carefully stoked in his chest for the lightning spell he blew out, amplifying the reach of his necromancy.

But instead of going for the dead wolves that were immediately nearby, the spirits darted elsewhere, and Dorian let out a string of bitter curses.

It took much longer, but soon enough the air began to fill with cracked moans as two frozen corpses began to shuffle their way. The dead fell on the wolf, and it howled as the hungry spirits within tore into it with ragged fingers and teeth, Trevelyan falling on his rear with a yelp as its jaw released. Able to get a clear shot now, Varric filled it with bolts until it stopped moving entirely. Then he threw a bomb on it for good measure.

The battle was over in maybe three minutes. Possibly shorter.

Once he was certain the danger had passed, the wisps leaving the corpses like a whisper of breath, Dorian swiftly moved up to check on Trevelyan, who was still sitting dazed in the snow. As he got closer, the man suddenly fell backward with a soft _poof._

“Alexiel?” He hated the way his voice trembled.

“—Fine. Fine.” Trevelyan grabbed fistfuls of snow and poured it over his front. “Its teeth didn’t get past my glove.”

“Then—what are you doing down there?”

“It’s nice down here.”

Dorian rolled his eyes and offered his hand. Trevelyan took it, and after a short period of apparent debate over whether or not to pull Dorian down with him, he stood, shaking the snow from his shoulders like a wet mabari.

“Those undead. If I’m not mistaken, that was Freemen armor,” he remarked, all business now. “Very curious.”

They followed shuffled footprints until they arrived at what could only be described as the desiccated remains of a camp. Tents were crushed and torn, the central fire was stone cold, broken and chewed up bodies littered the ground that they walked on. Little of it was covered in snow.

Cassandra went to work rifling through their communications, her eyes passing over the notes and letters that were spread out all over the camp. “According to the missives, they followed the Red Templars up here to recapture some of their men after the templars started kidnapping some of their number.”

And, evidently, failed miserably in their task.

Not much remained of their skeletons. Not only had the hungry pack picked the flesh nearly clean from their bodies, but they had crunched through the bones too, licking them empty of their marrow. The pieces that were left were vaguely recognizable, tattered clothing and armor with the occasional intact skull. Frankly, Dorian was lucky to get the two corpses that he did.

The air rumbled a little as Iron Bull _hmm_ ed over the camp. “These Freemen were looking for Red Templars, and a wolf from the pack that ate them is infected with Red Lyrium. Only question is, are those Red Templars the particular group we’re looking for, or stragglers from when we cleared the quarry?”

“Oh, the stragglers would have been long gone by now,” Trevelyan remarked offhandedly, stooping to pick up one of the skulls. “And we killed every single one we could find. Even the ones that ran. _Especially_ the ones that ran.” Then he pitched up his voice and started moving the jaw of the skull in conjunction with his words, turning it to look at Varric. “Hey! Look at me! I’m dead!”

“Smiley, you know that was a person once, don’t you?”

Trevelyan tilted his head. “So you’re saying it’s inappropriate to use their skull as a puppet?”

Varric massaged his forehead, his expression a touch too exasperated to look like a smile but too jovial to look like a reproach. “It’s a… _tad_ disrespectful.”

He worked the jaw of the skull again. “But what if I think it’s really funny?”

It was Dorian who slapped the back of his head this time, and Trevelyan grinned like a fool as the skull slipped off his hand.

As garish as it was, they made camp in the remains of the enemy outpost. Cassandra had insisted on cremating what was left of their remains, going out to start a proper fire rather than accepting Dorian’s offered magical fire. Bull, engaged in setting up their tents, had protested that there were better uses of her time as she dragged them across the ground, before half-heartedly getting up to help. He needn’t have bothered. Though Dorian didn’t see it for himself he was certain that Cassandra could pull down a tree for firewood if she wanted to.

The sun had gone down and the warmth of their carefully contained camp fire was just starting to pleasantly roast the cold out of Dorian’s bones when Trevelyan plopped down next to him, snow in his hair.

“You want to go somewhere?” he asked.

Dorian didn’t even have to think about it, bringing out his hand and lightly increasing the heat of the fire. “No.”

“Awww…” Trevelyan leaned against him as might befit a particularly clingy cat, not appearing discouraged in the least. “It’s a beautiful night out. The air is finally still, the sky is clear, and the moon is full. Perfect for a stroll.”

“Go out with you on some moonlit berry-picking expedition as I slowly freeze to death?” It almost wasn’t even worth a scoff, but Dorian produced one anyway, crossing one leg over the other and giving a slightly dramatic turn away. “No, thank you.”

He heard stifled laughter beside him.

Trevelyan had been doing that a lot. Laughing. --Not that awful, pitched laughter that would accompany a particularly intense battle, but that warm and lingering thing that he saved specifically for Dorian. Many a time had he caught himself playing the fool just to hear it, his one saving grace being that he knew Trevelyan was always doing precisely the same thing to get Dorian laughing. What a pair they were.

“Away, gadfly. I don’t have an ice fetish like you Southerners do.”

“Ice is more like an addiction.” He nuzzled Dorian’s shoulder, which may have been more effective if it wasn’t blocked by his collar. “My _fetish_ is Tevinter mages.”

“Oh, so it’s a _fetish_ , is it?” Dorian scratched at a spot on Trevelyan’s jaw he knew was ticklish and he pulled away instantly, snuffling and kicking at the wet dirt around the fire. “Alas, you cannot tempt me. I have better things to do than turn my fingers and toes into little icicles.”

“Alright, alright, fine.” He made an exaggerated sigh, nearly falling over entirely as he slumped. “I _was_ going to take you to a hot spring that I found last time we were here…”

“…A hot spring?”

Dorian had not been in a proper hot spring since before he’d come South.

Like some common plebeian he had learned how to heat his own bathwater long ago, but naturally hot, bubbling spring water? That fell under the purview of “presently unaffordable luxury”, as had so many things that made him feel like a person before coming here.

“Yes I suppose I’ll just go by myself then,” Trevelyan continued, standing up from the cut log on which Dorian sat. “I do plan to enjoy it. I only had enough time to get my feet wet, last I visited. Perhaps this time I will be able to soak properly. I wouldn’t want to get my clothes damp so I’ll have to be naked, of course…”

It didn’t take much to get Dorian’s cheeks burning these days, evidently. Trevelyan preferred to be dressed more often than not—said he liked the way his clothing cut his figure. Which Dorian didn’t disagree with, but it did mean that seeing him in a state of undress was less common than he would have liked, and thus, a more tantalizing prospect. He cleared his throat. “Going out by yourself sounds risky.”

“Hm? Oh, maybe…” He looked back idly, a pure affectation of apathy on his face. “I really want to soak in a hot spring, though. I suppose I’ll have to risk it. Bye bye, Dorian.”

He wasn’t gone from camp for ten seconds before Dorian swore and jogged to catch up with him.

Now that the two of them were walking together he allowed himself the indulgence of looking at Trevelyan’s face, his quiet focus having clearly returned for the task of navigating. His skin, normally so pale that early in the morning Dorian would sometimes wonder if he would look any different as a dead man, was flushed a ruddy pink from the cold, particularly his nose and cheeks. Wisps of cloudy steam would slip from his lips every now and then, like the beginnings of a sigh or a chuckle. Dorian only looked away when Trevelyan suddenly turned in his direction, pretending to have been inspecting the tree-line.

A cool, winter stillness surrounded them. Dorian had never seen its like in Tevinter, a blanket of white that was blue in the night air, pink and orange in the sunset. The snow of Haven had been bitter and tainted with ash when he’d arrived, and the snow of Skyhold was practically a dry powder in comparison to this. Their footfalls came with a slight crunch, a layer of ice on the ground that cracked and packed where they stepped. No animals called to break the silence, no birds with their shrill songs or insects chirruping away. It was utter peace. It was a world with just the two of them. Him, and the man he…

Well.

Dorian was very nearly forced to admit that this place was actually quite beautiful.

“…So is the number higher than twenty?”

He turned to stare at Trevelyan for a moment before it clicked, the both of them approaching an outcropping of rock, and all appreciation for nature left him entirely. “ _Are you still obsessed with that?”_

“I have a lot of time to think, and I think very fast, so I have exhausted a great many alternate topics of thought—"

“How interesting that you can cycle through and discard a hundred ideas in an hour, and yet this one remains stuck in your mind for days. And _twenty?_ By Hessarian’s bloody sword—"

“It’s not like I know how many partners the typical person has!” Trevelyan put up his hands defensively, though it was obvious just from looking at him that the gesture was half joking. “For all I know, that’s a perfectly reasonable number.”

“That is pure and utter bullshit, Serrah ‘Only Five’.”

“No one ever said _I_ was typical.”

“This is going to be an ongoing trend with you, isn’t it?” Dorian closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I tell you to drop something, and you go sticking your nose into it like some sort of Fereldan bloodhound.”

“I’m not going to tear it to shreds if I find it, Dorian. I _do_ love you, you know.” That word again, the one that tangled itself in knots every time Dorian tried to bring it to his lips. It was warm, and sweet, and at the same time it had begun to sting. It felt like an admonishment. “Nothing you say will change how I feel about you.”

“It’s not about how _you_ feel!” And he could tell that it had been loud, much too loud, by the way that his voice carried around them, echoing in the trees.

Trevelyan blinked more rapidly, a sure sign that the declaration had been the verbal equivalent of striking him, before saying demurely, “I could narrow the question down to how many men you have been intimate with?”

Dorian was not impressed. “All I have _been_ is intimate, I told you.”

But Trevelyan waved his hand, his expression serious. “No, no. Intimacy isn’t always the same thing as sex. You in particular have somehow developed some method of doing one without the other. I’m not asking how many you’ve had sex with. I am asking with how many you have—I suppose been _open_ with.” He swallowed, suddenly appearing nervous. “With how many you have shared not just a bed, but—yourself.” Another moment, and he added, almost too quiet to hear, “For me, the answer is still five.”

And that gave Dorian pause.

Not because he needed to consider, no. He knew without having to think about it, of course. At some point in his life he might have wondered, might have had to seriously ponder it, but if his time with Trevelyan had taught him anything, it was the answer to that question.

Trevelyan had been intimate with five people in his life. Those had not been notches on his belt. Not passing fancies to waste a summer with. Not idle games. These partners had all meant something to him, and now they were all gone.

Perhaps that was what this was. Not the gossipy prying of a grown man who frequently conducted himself as though he were some morbid teenager with all the maturity to match, but the insecure probing of someone who had been in five relationships that had, evidently, all failed.

“Intimate,” he repeated.

Trevelyan nodded once.

Dorian sighed and put his hands on his hips, taking only a second to steady himself before he began to speak. “I—"

That was when the rock near them exploded, and the world became confusion and chaos.


	2. Blood on the Snow and Little Else

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a note, this fic will feature frequent changes in perspective. I will try to make it clear by context who is the POV character in each chapter.
> 
> Also, I haven’t finished the story, so I don’t want to Officially go on a weekly update schedule yet, but I really wanted to post something this week. ...In part because this is really more a continuation of the first chapter that sets up the story.

He was on his knees in a pile of snow, hunched over and clutching his temples. As soon as this fact became apparent to him, he stood, cautiously. His legs felt okay, but his head was wobbly, and there was blood in his mouth. The world seemed to fade in and out of focus, eyes shivering, stomach rolling. He snapped his teeth, spitting a glob of red onto the snow.

Then it was fine. Balance restored.

Where was he?

He seemed to be tucked away behind a crumbled piece of statue and a few white brick walls, the original subject that had stood on the plinth lost to time and destruction. There was some suggestion of flowing robes—perhaps Andraste? It did not make much sense for him to be anywhere where there weren’t statues of Andraste all over.

Tentatively, he stepped outside of the little hideaway in which he’d found himself and saw a camp fortified with the remains of an older structure that had, too, succumbed to the elements. All over he could see banners and shields that bore the flaming sword, racks of weaponry that had been emptied of their contents. There were bodies of other Templars around him, looking as though they had been roasted and cut apart, and his mind ran at breakneck speed to fit the pieces together, to try and figure out how he had arrived here. He was in a Templar camp. One that had been ransacked. And he had been…

His mind was foggy, and it hurt.

Uneasy. The weight on his body felt wrong. He was exposed, bare, naked without—ah. A bow and a quiver of arrows. He snatched them off a corpse that would no longer be using them, and his skin settled.

Never mind how he had gotten here—he was to be a Templar, so he was a Templar, that was simple enough. There was a clear and present danger, and that was all he needed to let his instincts kick in. Funny—slipping into the shadows had never felt this easy and practiced before. Perhaps it was the training. Perhaps it had been worth something after all.

It didn’t take long for his enemies to present themselves, striding back from further in the camp, and he gave them high marks for their punctuality. Even as the bottom of his stomach dropped out at the sight of them. There were two—a dark-skinned man with a mustache in sparkling white robes hung asymmetrically about his body, and a big grey qunari that was two heads taller than him. He had to struggle to get out of their line of sight as they walked, lingering perhaps a touch too close just to know what he was up against. Both of them were covered in blood, albeit the qunari moreso.

The human was a mage, he knew that much. Tevinter—had to be. There was no way a Southern mage could wear such elaborate and gaudy garments. Not that he had seen many Southern mages. As soon as the man had stepped into the clearing, magic had begun to radiate off him in waves. The crisp, electric tang of recent casting, something that he hadn’t thought he’d ever feel again in his life. It was precisely as he remembered but more potent, more skin-tingling, and it took all of his self-control not to let himself be seen, to remain in hiding amidst the broken camp.

He tried to summon to mind everything he knew about fighting a mage, but the lessons he had taken were mush in his memory. Suppose that served him right for daydreaming during them.

As for the qunari. He had never seen one in person, and in spite of himself felt both excited and intimidated. He was large not just in size but in pure muscle mass as well, with great horns wide and battle-rough like the rest of him. A great axe sat across his shoulders in a relaxed grip that said he could bring it to bear at any moment with ease, coated in the blood of the other Templars he must have just slaughtered. There was a brace on one leg suggesting a prior injury, and some of the fingers on his left hand looked incomplete, as though someone had partially chopped them off. When he swung his head around to examine the area, an eyepatch became visible. He had an impaired range of vision.

That was good, at least.

They were talking, commenting on whatever they found. He attuned his ears to their chatter, hoping that he would learn something to pierce the fog that had taken over his mind, but it was a fruitless endeavor. His head hurt so much…

“He’s not there. But they were holding him _here_.” The mage said, his accent posh and foreign and _delightful_ , gesturing at discarded bonds on the ground that looked brittle with rust. “Perhaps instead of running further in, he went out into the woods looking for us. –We must have missed him.”

“How did they even catch him in the first place?” The qunari’s voice was smoother than appearances suggested, and very deep.

“I blame myself.” The mage sighed, kicking in a few tent flaps as though expecting someone living to be inside. “We went out to do some--reconnaissance and got…distracted. Walked right into an ambush.”

“Distracted, huh?”

The mage rose to the qunari’s bait. They must have known each other. Perhaps the qunari was not some mercenary hired for protection. Perhaps there were emotional compromises in play. “Not like _that,_ you cretin. –The point is that we didn’t see the attack coming until there was no time to prepare. He drew them off me and then…” All irritation swept seemed to drain from his face. All color, too. “They hit him, and he fell. I was cut off by the other Templars. _–Fasta vass,_ they dragged him away and _I couldn’t do anything_.”

“—Hey, hey, come on.” The giant put a great grey hand on the mage’s shoulder with surprising gentleness. “He clearly got free. It’s not like the Boss is the sort of guy a few grunts can take out.”

The reassurance evidently did not have the desired effect, and the mage whipped around and snapped, “This isn’t one of Varric’s cheap novels, or one of Maryden’s ballads. Sometimes the hero dies by falling rock.”

“Not this one.”

His eyes were swimming, trying to fit their words back into the picture in his mind. There was a third party unaccounted for.

Whoever this person was, it sounded like they cared about him, at any rate. Perhaps it was another mage—an apostate that had been captured out here, ready to be sent to the Circle. But this apostate was the rare kind that actually had friends. Now they were here, their missing companion gone, ready to wreak unholy vengeance on any Templars they found.

A flicker of envy raced through him, unbidden, unwanted.

He wouldn’t know what to do with friends like that.

On its tail end came the slightest bit of nerves—he was one of those Templars, wasn’t he? He was. He had to be. Otherwise—why would he be here? The spike of his heartbeat cut through the fog, and he carefully crept around the two as they continued to argue. The actual base entrance was too visible, but the wall was obscured by a thick evergreen that covered his form as he scaled it. Best to just slip away before he was spotted and try to find the commander, learn what was going on. Assuming they hadn’t killed the commander. What if they killed the commander?

What if the commander was snapped in half, neck at an odd angle, body broiled from magic with his eyes wide and gaping, covered in blood from axe swings to his body…

So consumed was he with sudden, uncontrollable fantasy that he was not paying close enough attention to his navigation. His foot knocked free a bit of the loose stone in the old fortress’ wall as he swung around to the other side, and he went sliding down, his forward momentum throwing him to the ground with a _poof!_. He growled and sat up on his haunches to stand.

And came face to face with a dwarf.

The both of them stared at each other in shock for a moment, before the dwarf spluttered, “Smiley?”

He threw a handful of snow into his face.

It wasn’t as effective as sand but it did keep the dwarf occupied for a moment as he darted away, feeling his heart start to thud as the others took notice. Sloppy, very sloppy, but then this wasn’t training anymore, this was real—

“ _Wait a moment!_ ” A new figure had entered the fray, a lovely woman with a sharp, Nevarran accent and scars over her face, sword in hand. She did not block his path. She did not threaten him with her blade. “What is going on? Where have you been?”

“That—that’s a sunburst on your armor.” He glanced between her and the approaching dwarf, seeing to his horror that the noise had attracted the attention of the mage and the qunari as well. His body tensed, primed to run again. “You’re a—” Blast it. He knew that particular symbol. Where had he seen it before? “Are you—are you with the Templars? –You’re with the Chantry at least, aren’t you?”

“With the Templars?” But she stared at him only with confusion in her eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh.” He felt himself smile wide and feral. He couldn’t help it. His body was starting to buzz, the pressure of the others encroaching on him beginning to grow. “That’s a no, isn’t it?”

“There you are!” The voice came from behind him. The mage was starting to dart in his direction, a peculiar intensity in his eyes.

He let out a startled roar and threw a knife from his belt—since when did he have knives at his belt…?

The mage squawked, quickly casting a green barrier over himself against which the knife bounced with a dull thud.

But by that point, Trevelyan was already vaulting over another crumbled line of brick and running into the trees.

Of course they followed. A lifetime of people letting him run when he wanted someone to ask him to stay, and now that he needed escape they dogged at his heels like rabid mabari. They were shouting words after him, but he was too frantic to listen. The world around him crunched, the thickness of the snow slowing him down. He tried to compensate by taking turns, trying to find changes in elevation wherever possible, but it wasn’t putting any real distance behind him.

Chases, like dog fights, were one of those things that didn’t last nearly as long as the books would claim.

Blight take them all, that qunari was faster than he looked. He lagged behind as they began but as he built momentum he outpaced all of them, horns facing front as he charged. The sight of him racing inspired a hysterical, even elated burst of energy that propelled him forward even as fatigue began to set in, moving faster than—well, he couldn’t remember ever being able to run this fast. Was this terror?

Ducking, weaving, and then—

He came up against a sheer wall of rock.

Blank. For a moment, his thoughts were as clear and empty as the expanse of grey before him. Then spitting, boiling rage washed through him, curling up tightly in his chest, at having his egress denied.

He reached for the bow and arrow at his back, and drew on the pack encroaching upon him. To his satisfaction, they looked more winded than he was, with the exception of the Seeker.

\--Seeker. What was a Seeker? Where had that word come from?

“Stay back,” he snarled with a painful grin, feeling the fog clouding his mind more intensely as he tried to summon the previous night’s events. “Or I will kill at least one of you before the rest of you take me down. I’m not like the others.”

He was unlike the others in that he had never taken Lyrium, and had no way to combat magic. But there were other ways, too.

“Now hold on, hold on,” the dwarf held up his hands, alarm in his features even as he gasped for breath. “Let’s not do anything rash.”

“What is this nonsense?” The woman with the eye insignia on her front was the one who spoke next. He shifted his aim to her. “Put that down before your hurt someone.”

“Hurting people is something I like to do,” he spat, skin writhing, “So don’t _tempt me_.”

“Alexiel.”

His name, falling from the mage’s lips, a stricken look on his face.

Trevelyan felt his blood run cold, grip on his bowstring wavering. “What?”

“Alexiel, it’s us.” The mage stepped forward, voice slow, sculpted brows drawing inward not in anger but concern. “Don’t you—don’t you recognize us?”

“No.” Their expressions were wrong—why were they looking at him like that? With those eyes that mirrored his own confusion. They should be glowering with malicious intent, or at the very least irritation. They must have been the ones who killed the camp. Was he not a part of the camp? “Why are you—how—”

For the first time he gave thought to the fact that he was not wearing Templar armor. That his outfit fit him perfectly, in fact. There was no restriction on his movement, nothing that choked his body or weighed it down too heavily. His gloves were an expensive black, worn over sleeves a rich purple. He even suspected that if he looked down he wouldn’t see the flaming sword anywhere on his person.

The picture he’d made to cover his void of memory was inaccurate.

His heart shook.

“I—” They blurred in his vision. The fog hurt as it did when he’d first awoken. “I d—I don’t—"

“Alexiel.” His name again. His arms seemed frozen, but when the mage took another step towards him his legs vaulted him back so that his spine hit the rock. The mage had painted eyes. The mustache almost distracted him from them. Too far away to see what color they were, but even as he thought that his mind popped in with _Grey. Gold, when reflecting fire. Blue, when surrounded by lightning._ Something like fear lodged in his throat. “Your ordeal is over, you understand? We’ll get you to a healer and—"

He snarled and readjusted his aim so that the very tip of his arrow was pointed right between those pretty eyes. “No. I’m not going anywhere. You’re going to start explaining this to me. Or I kill you first.”


	3. Head Wound, Wound Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, maybe I can get away with posting a chapter every time I complete a new one, and then move on to weekly when the fic is finished.

Alexiel Trevelyan, head of the Inquisition, who had up until a few minutes ago been presumed captured by the Red Templars, was still pointing a tensed arrow at all three of them with the look in his eyes of an animal backed into a corner.

There were gaps in his armor and tears in his clothing, the look of both battle and rough handling. Most notably there was blood caked down the entire left half of his face, stemming from a gash on his temple that appeared to have only recently stopped bleeding.

“Start talking!” he barked. His voice was scratched with alarm, just slightly winded from running. A tremor showed itself in the shaking of his bow, despite how rigidly he held it.

“You,” Dorian began, his voice slow and clear as he set his staff down in the snow. There didn’t seem to be any hexes on the man to dispell, but then it was hardly possible to be sure at this distance. “Are Alexiel Trevelyan. L--”

“ _I know_ _that much_ ,” he snapped. “Where am I? This is not Ostwick.”

“I was _getting to that_ if you would just _let me finish_.” Dorian gave him a defiant glare, and amazingly his lips shut. “This is Emprise du Lion, in Orlais. You are the leader of the Inquisition, and we are part of your inner circle. Comrades. Brothers-in-arms? You don’t go around shooting us, is the point.”

Trevelyan laughed, a shrill edge to the sound. “You sound mad. –What do the rest of you think?”

“He’s telling you the truth,” Varric said, his own voice maddeningly calm even as his fingers were clearly twitching for Bianca. “Listen, we came out here looking for a crew of Red Templars that were causing trouble for our people, and they clearly did something to you.”

“And what, exactly, are Red Templars?”

“Templars who have consumed red lyrium. They—"

“ _Red lyrium?”_ The point of his arrow switched over to Varric this time, though it seemed almost obligatory at this point. Like it was a mere indication of who he was speaking to. “Lyrium is _blue._ I don’t know what exactly you’re trying to convince me of, but—"

“Stop this foolishness!” Cassandra suddenly interjected, taking a single step towards Trevelyan. Instantly, the point of the arrow was upon her once more. She didn’t flinch. “You are outnumbered four to one, outmatched, and backed up against a wall. Your threatening is nothing more than empty posturing—any one of us could have killed you by now if that was our intention, and shrugged off your arrow with ease beside. Put down your arms and listen to reason.”

Everyone present turned to gape at her, save for Trevelyan who stiffened and looked, for a moment, like he was going to throw up. Then his mouth slowly spread into a grim smile, and he relaxed the tension on his bow string.

“That’s a very good point,” he muttered.

The Iron Bull had remained silent through this whole exchange, but he began to speak now, stepping forward and subtly to the center, just slightly in front of them all. “You’re tired. You’re hurt. You’re not thinking straight. We get it. It’s been a rough day.”

Trevelyan pressed back against the wall as though he expected to be able to slip through it. “Not a day. I’ve only been conscious a few—a few minutes? A lot of minutes. –One of you did something to me. The—the mage.” He pointed at Dorian, and a sudden tightness seized Dorian’s chest at that. “He—must have cast something on me.”

“Dorian’s not casting anything on you. Whoever hurt you is either dead or they’re one of the ones that ran.” Under his breath, Bull added, “Probably could have tracked them too if you weren’t running us into the woods.”

Trevelyan said Dorian’s name to himself as though testing it out, no longer focused on Bull. “It’s all very fuzzy…”

“Yeah, I can tell.” Bull continued to inch closer, voice at the same steady level, arms up and ready. “Come on, we’ll get this all sorted out, alright? We’ve got healers nearby and they’ll patch you up just fine.” It was like watching a dogcatcher going for a beaten stray on the street.

Complete with Trevelyan going completely berserk as soon as the Iron Bull moved to grab him.

Dorian had never seen the man he loved behave that way before, not really. His violence manifested in many ways, sometimes with joy and sometimes with cold proficiency. But there was always some level of methodology to it, some undercurrent of training or practice. Control. There was no control now. As he was held to the ground Trevelyan thrashed and screamed in rage, kicking at nothing, jerking hard enough that he might have torn his shoulders from their sockets if he’d been given any amount of leverage.

Through it all, Bull maintained his grip him with a grim calm, holding him so that he couldn’t break free, couldn’t twist or turn or lash out at anything but air. It was an unsettling reminder of his strength, and yet Dorian found himself grateful that it kept Trevelyan from hurting himself.

Hurting himself _further._

Finally, he fell limp, pressing his face into the snow as he raggedly huffed out clouds of steam into the air.

The Iron Bull cautiously moved to release him then, his voice gentle. “Listen, Boss, we’re trying to figure this out just as much as y—”

Trevelyan reared up and socked him right in the eye with his elbow.

“ _Augh! Fuck!_ ”

Taking advantage of the opening, Trevelyan leaped to his feet and started to sprint off into the tree line, a demented string of bubbling cackles following in his wake. Dorian watched him run, closest to the direction that he had gone but not moving to get in his way even as Varric and Cassandra tried to intercept his path. Soon he was out of both sight and earshot.

“Why didn’t you stop him?” Cassandra demanded, the moment it became apparent that he had escaped.

Dorian stared numbly at the trees. “…He doesn’t like being held still when he’s panicking.”

“Shit,” Varric grumbled, trudging back through the snow with some difficulty. “Anyone here able to tell me what just happened?”

“Trevelyan just made me fucking _blind_ , that’s what happened.” Tears were streaming from the Bull’s one eye, sclerae red, the area just around his cheekbone darkening. “Shit. _Ass. Vashedan._ He knocked me with one of the bands on his arm.”

“Calm down, you big lout,” Dorian said without much heat, walking over and extending a hand out to Bull’s face. “I can heal this much, at least.”

Slowly—slower than he would like—the red puffiness and watering began to fade. Bull snorted, wiping his cheek and pulling back the second the spell had done its job.

“…Looked like he got hit in the head pretty hard,” he said more thoughtfully once he’d calmed down, voice like gravel. “Might be it knocked something loose in there and he’s lost his memory. Seen it before.”

“In Seheron?” Dorian inquired dryly.

“In school, smartass.”

“Amnesia. Great. I thought that was just a plot device caused by magic rings.” Varric put a hand to his forehead. “Well, how do we fix it?”

Bull shook his head. “You don’t. It has to come back on its own. Sometimes just in a few days. Sometimes never. Depends on how bad he got knocked out.”

“Considering you come from a land without mage healers, you’ll have to pardon me if I don’t trust your prognosis.” Dorian rubbed a hand over his chin, trying to let the clinical part of his mind take over. “I’ve heard of other cases of memory blackouts, but they’re usually trauma related. Someone blacks out a week wherein they watched their entire family slaughtered or something. Though I can’t imagine him being traumatized by anything that doesn’t have eight legs.”

“Or mirrors.”

“Or those, yes.”

“Whatever the cause, we cannot let him go off on his own,” Cassandra interjected. “The risk of him further injuring himself is too great. Not to mention the chance of him running into one of the fleeing Red Templars.”

“I will go get him,” Dorian sighed, crouching to pick up his staff. “I am sure that once he has had some time to reflect, he will see that I am too devastatingly charming to cut my throat open and bleed me out over the snow.”

“Dorian, you do not have to—”

“I’m. Going.” He looked at them each in turn, as though daring them to challenge him.

None of them did. He felt fiercely proud of that. Trevelyan was his right.

The suspicion and fear that had taken over his eyes still stuck in his memory as he followed the hastily made, shuffled footprints. Sometimes, when they were traveling between missions, they would play this game where Trevelyan would go off hiding and Dorian would attempt to find him, only able to do so because he was deliberately left clues. He knew that the man was perfectly capable of hiding his tracks if he wanted to. …But perhaps that was something else he’d forgotten.

How could this have happened?

There was bile in his throat.

The forest broke out into a clearing with a still, frozen pond in the center. There, to his relief, knelt Trevelyan at the edge. His hands were braced on the frozen water as he peered down at himself, looking utterly absorbed. He twitched as Dorian approached, but ultimately remained still, his eyes fixed upon himself.

“I look older,” he said softly, slowly bringing up a hand to touch his cheek.

Not knowing what to say, Dorian simply knelt beside him.

Though he did not turn to look, it was clear Trevelyan was talking to him when he spoke up again, face twisting. “My eyes look—sunken. Was I always this pale? And my teeth, they—they’re so–Everyone always called me a ghoul at home. I don’t remember looking the part so well.”

“You don’t look like a ghoul.” The set of his shoulders rose, but Dorian pressed on. “In fact I’ve always found you rather attractive.”

“An attractive ghoul.” He laughed, but it was entirely without joy. “Please tell me you did this. So you can take it back.”

“I didn’t. And I can’t. Believe me, I would.”

Trevelyan sagged. “I see.”

“Alexiel—”

“ _Don’t say my name._ ” The echoes of his shout lingered in the frosty air, and Trevelyan shrunk back in their wake. No longer was he looking at himself in the ice. “It’s--it’s too—” His voice cut off, and he shifted back just enough to press his face into the snowbank that framed the water. Some of the blood came off into it.

“Let’s get you cleaned up.” Dorian almost put a hand on his shoulder but thought better of it, simply shuffling closer instead. “You must be exhausted.”

“Promise me,” Trevelyan said as he pulled himself upright, his eyes weary and drooping, “that you will not slaughter me like a chicken to summon a demon like my tutors keep saying is going to happen to me. It would make me look too much the fool for laughing at them.”

It was only then that Dorian helped him to his feet, allowing himself the smallest of smiles. “I don’t see why we would, when we have plenty of actual chickens set aside for that purpose.”

Trevelyan snorted.

He also ripped his arm free from Dorian’s gentle grip the moment he was steady enough to walk on his own.

“You must remember something,” Cassandra insisted with an edge of desperation to her voice, leaning forward on the stump she had taken for a chair. “The Anchor, the Inquisition, Corypheus— _something_.”

“None of those words you just listed mean anything to me at all,” Trevelyan said coolly, his head cleaned and wrapped in gauze. The healers on hand at the campsite had inspected him and drawn the conclusion that he had a mild concussion. They’d done what they could, but nothing had brought his memory back. They had even suggested that healing the injury through magic might risk making the effect permanent. “The last thing I remember is being in the Templars as a new recruit. I assume I am not still a Templar?”

“No. You were with them at the Conclave, and then when the temple exploded—”

“What temple? What Conclave?”

Cassandra gave an angry sigh and put one gauntleted hand to her forehead. “The Conclave at the Temple of Sacred Ashes.”

“What’s the Temple of Sacred Ashes?”

She looked more indignant at that. “The temple where Andraste’s sacred ashes were found!”

Trevelyan seemed to be taking some measure of delight in her frustration. His knee started bouncing in place, a little bit of teeth showing in his smile. “I thought Andraste’s ashes were lost.”

“They were found by the Hero of—Do you not even remember the Fifth Blight in Fereldan!?”

“Why would I pay attention to what’s going on in Fereldan? I’m from Ostwick.”

With a disgusted cry of frustration, she stood and stormed down the hill to the brightly colored, broken roofs of Sahrnia, which lay right next to where the Inquisition had made their camp.

Trevelyan glanced back at the rest of them, expression innocent. “Is she always like this?”

Varric chuckled, tone relaxed but carrying a tension in his shoulders as he moved to occupy the seat that Cassandra had just vacated. “You don’t know the half of it, Smiley. –You really didn’t know about the Blight?”

“Well,” Trevelyan said quietly, angling his face down in a bashful manner, “Come to think of it, I may have heard my father complaining about all the Fereldan refugees. I might just not have been paying attention.”

On the outskirts of the circle stood Dorian and the Iron Bull, observing the debriefing but not as of yet participating. It had been…an odd day, and it was still too early to declare it over. The mission had been…something of a success—the Red Templar and Venatori cell was dead, but after some further inspection in the camp it was clear that some members had escaped. With their luck, the leadership. No hint of Samson or Calpernia in the area, but that just meant they were dealing with unknowns. Very troublesome, that.

“You’re awfully quiet,” Dorian said at last, glancing over. Craning his neck, really, to try and get a look at Bull’s expression. But he was on the wrong side, and all he saw was the eye patch. “Tell me those Ben-Hassrath thoughts of yours.”

"Still putting them together. I’ll let you know, big guy,” he said distractedly.

"That means that you have thoughts, but you don’t want to share them.” Dorian clucked his tongue in disapproval. “…He seems calmer now, don’t you think?”

“ _Seems_ calmer, sure.” It was a noncommittal answer. A subtle tilt of Bull’s head was exaggerated by the movement of his horns as he asked, “Dorian…if he was a demon, you’d be able to tell, right?”

“What?” His attention left the pair they were watching and instead moved fully to Bull. “Why would you think that he’s a demon?”

“Back at Therinfal—before you joined. We ran into an Envy demon that was impersonating the Lord Seeker, and after we arrived it tried to turn into Trevelyan. Freakiest shit I’ve ever seen. He tell you about that?”

“Not much.” It had been one of the only anecdotes that Trevelyan seemed too disturbed to recount, lapsing into a distant stare every time he started telling it. Dorian had gotten the picture, and settled for a secondhand account from Cassandra. Not that she had been witness to whatever went on with the demon in Trevelyan’s mind. “…So you’re concerned he’s been replaced.”

“Yeah.”

“And not that the Envy demon waltzed out of Therinfal in his place long before with all of you none the wiser?” This time the eye came around to glare at him, and Dorian couldn’t help a soft chuckle. “If it were an Envy demon, it would have all of his memories. …And it likely wouldn’t be so…” He sucked in a breath. “Withdrawn.”

Varric didn’t seem to be taking the exercise seriously, continually barraging Trevelyan with inane little questions like, “Does the title, ‘The Tale of the Champion’ mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“This is so weird,” he said. “You recognized me immediately when we first met, from the dust jacket. –I guess this was before the book was published.”

“So you’re an author?”

It was ridiculous. It was small talk. They were engaging in _small talk_ with the man who had led them through the Game in Halamshiral. Who had bested the Wardens at Adamant and walked through the Fade. Dorian wanted to puke.

“I will concur however,” he added in a quieter murmur, “That it seems odd to have such a dramatic and…specific change solely because of an injury. I wouldn’t rule demons out. I have never known anyone to lose their long-term memories from being struck on the skull.”

“Like I said, it happens.” Bull’s brow furrowed as he returned his attention to the man they were discussing. “It’s _rare_ but it happens.”

As Varric strode off to join Cassandra, evidently finished, Trevelyan leaned down to pick up a leaf that had been frozen into the snow and started picking it apart.

He looked so lonely.

Perhaps he always did. Perhaps that was sort of a trap about him—to look inviting and sad and overall fidgety and then go for the throat when a bleeding heart came by so that he could be alone again, because that was truly the state that he preferred.

Or maybe Dorian was just being maudlin from the day’s events.

But Trevelyan usually looked more cheerful than this, so Dorian would go to him all the same. He passed by their potions table as he walked over, helping himself to a potion of healing and sticking a sprig of elfroot in it for garnish. Trevelyan glanced over with alarm as the crunch of his footsteps heralded his coming, though he quickly settled down when he saw who it was. “Ah, the mage with the mustache. –I know your name, don’t tell me.”

The only thing he could do was grin through his wince. “Dorian Pavus.”

“Tevinter?” Trevelyan said more cautiously, still strangling the remains of the leaf in his fingers.

“Very good.” Dorian passed him the bottle. “Here, you still look a little like something one fishes out of a bog. This ought to help.”

“I knew it. I thought—well, the way you’re dressed, you couldn’t be—but the Circles are gone? That is a lot to…” Though the elfroot he went for immediately, sticking it in his teeth and chewing, Trevelyan took a moment to sniff the concoction first, clearing his throat. “…You have a very nice smile. I, um. I’m sorry about the—earlier with the—arrows and. I was very stressed. I get—when I’m stressed.”

Dorian sighed and brushed the first knuckle of his index finger over Trevelyan’s cheek briefly, startling him into silence. “Just drink it. You’ll feel better.”

There was a deep suspicion in his eyes. Or perhaps that was just the lingering bruise on Dorian’s pride. Eventually though, he made a cautious sip, appearing to savor the liquid for a moment before humming in approval. “This tastes very familiar. –Good, it’s good. I don’t know where I might have…”

“Adan makes it for you pretty regularly.”

“And Adan is…?”

“—Let’s focus on doing introductions when they come up in Skyhold, shall we? …Assuming that you haven’t regained your memories by then.” Dorian was plagued with the sudden unfortunate conviction that he had just jinxed it. “Go on, it’s not poison.”

“Well, now I think it might be poison.” Trevelyan smirked and took a larger gulp—then coughed as he swallowed and bent over, pressing his hand flat against his cheek.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“--Nothing. Nothing, it’s just…it’s cold in my mouth, that’s all. It hurts my teeth.”

“Ah…I suppose I should have recommended you warm the bottle in your hands for a moment.” Though he didn’t find them that unbearable, himself. “Well, I think you’ll find the potion assuaging the pain soon enough. Just try to make sure it only hits your tongue.”

Trevelyan obeyed, drinking more cautiously then. When he was done swallowing he murmured, “Would that physical pain were my only problem.”

“Yes, it’s a shame we don’t carry memory potions. Would make this whole ordeal so much simpler.”

“I’d like simpler.” Bottle finished, Trevelyan returned to his fidgeting, taking little clumps of snow from the ground around them and attempting to pack it, though in the cold light of day it proved too dry. “I have—so many things to keep in mind. The world’s changed, my life has changed, my—my hair has changed. I have bangs now. They’re very distracting. I would cut them but then what if I remember and then miss them again…”

“Don’t cut your bangs. They frame your face.”

“They’re easy to pull.”

Dorian smirked. “That too.”

The flirtation seemed to go right over Trevelyan’s head, as he stared glumly at the white powder in his hands. “It’s…a lot to wake up to. I’m not sure I have it strung together correctly.”

“You’re taking it awfully well. Considering. I half expected you to attempt escape again once the healer was done.”

He looked at Dorian out of the corner of his eye, the side of his mouth pulled back somewhat. “Well, I figure it would be too hard to kill all of you and run.”

The both of them laughed.

When they were done, Trevelyan mumbled, “You think I’m joking.”

Truly, he didn’t.

“Everyone else is probing you for what information you still have,” Dorian said softly, looking him over once more. Trevelyan’s leg simply hadn’t stopped bouncing. It was growing distracting. “ _I’m_ curious as to what your lack of memory feels like. Is everything simply—gone?”

The question was clearly not one the others had asked, because instead of a blithe non-answer Trevelyan thought about it for more than a second, eyes traveling to the trees that ringed the sides of their camp. “It’s…fuzzy. It’s like there’s a…a blanket on everything between…between going to sleep in-in my cot with--with the other recruits and…waking up in the snow with my head bleeding. Something’s there but my brain…doesn’t want to dwell on it. Can’t dwell on it?” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Curious.”

“What a vague observation.” Dorian straightened as Trevelyan turned a piercing gaze back on him. “Since I don’t remember anything, would it be too direct to ask about my relationships with all of you? That is—I’m not sure if I should continue to act pleasant or not.”

“You needn’t put on an act around these people, I assure you. We’re all familiar with your eccentricities, and Cassandra is quite used to being exasperated with them.”

“What about you?” Before he could answer Trevelyan said, cracking the knuckles on his fingers individually, “I think I can tell, though.”

“You and I are something of an item.”

“Yes. I…” He looked down, away, smile twitching. “…It feels unambiguous, but I didn’t want to assume. I am so often mistaken.”

Lonely. He had no right to look so lonely, so wanting. “Yes, you have gorgeous, glorious me to warm your bedrolls,” When Trevelyan gave him another sharp glance, he quickly added, “—Don’t misunderstand, I certainly don’t expect you to carry on as though you _haven’t_ lost all your memories of us together.”

That appeared to settle him down a little bit, though there was still a cautious look about him. “You would not…begrudge me some distance?”

Dorian could feel something inside himself being peeled apart. He ignored it. This was not a breakup. “Certainly not. Though I hope you will keep in mind that I…” Trevelyan’s eyes were carefully empty, and they stumbled his words. Trevelyan would kill forest creatures for meat, and that was the look he would give them. –Perhaps he wasn’t being maudlin at all. “…I am here for you. –So! Need any refreshers on who’s who, just give me a shout. …You get this lovely rumble in your voice after you shout.”

For a moment Trevelyan didn’t respond, simply maintaining that unsettling blankness in his stare. But then, abruptly, he started to emote again. “I never pictured myself with anyone who had facial hair.” His tone quickly turned appreciative. “I thought it was ridiculous at first but now it’s quite fetching. How do you get it to taper at the end like that?”

Dorian was entirely prepared to launch an explanation into his facial hair grooming regimen when he heard a booming, “Getting excited for Skyhold, Boss?”

If the look Trevelyan had given Dorian earlier was a touch frosty, he leveled a glacier at the Iron Bull now. It was so obvious—Bull must have seen it, but he made no acknowledgment of it, didn’t even flinch at the quiet venom in Trevelyan’s voice. “Skyhold? –Bull, was it? Like a cow?”

“Skyhold. The little pilgrimage point where all of your followers gather. The people who look to you for leadership and guidance. That Skyhold. We did tell you that you’re Inquisitor, right?”

The hatred was gone, replaced by something that may have been fear. “So you’re saying that—that there is a hold full of people that I am responsible for.”

“And if they figure out you’ve lost your memory, it’ll fuck up all of our political maneuvering and shit for saving the world.”

Trevelyan blinked, glancing between Bull and Dorian.

“No pressure,” Dorian added.

He stared long and hard at the both of them.

A fraction of a second slower reaction time and Trevelyan might have been able to run, but Dorian just managed to seize him by the back of his jacket as Cassandra came jogging back over.

“There is nowhere you can go!” she insisted, holding him fast. “The world knows you now as the Herald of Andraste. Like it or not, this is your life!”

“You’re talking but I don’t understand a single word out of your mouth!”

“I leave you alone with him for _one second_ ,” Dorian heard, glancing over to see Varric with his hands on his hips and watching them tousle with the Inquisitor as though they were defacing his favorite tavern. “You keep this up and we’ll need to bring in the healer again.”

Trevelyan continued to babble. “I’ll change my name. I’ll grow a beard. I’ll—"

Before he could object, Cassandra tugged off the glove on his left hand.

Whatever color had made its way to Trevelyan’s cheeks from the cold completely drained from his face, and he stopped struggling.

“Oh.”

They started the journey to Skyhold the following morning.

Trevelyan’s wounds had healed quite nicely, save for a little bit of stitching over the gash in his forehead that would need to be handled on the road with time and poultices. It pulled up just slightly on the slant of his eyebrow, making him appear just a little bit more manic in his resting face. Dorian informed him it was dashing as he scowled at it in the reflection of the broth they had for breakfast.

Trevelyan’s mount, a lean black horse with a speckled white rump and snout, moved to sniff his hair and lick his face happily as they approached, and he grew stiff at the contact, glancing around at the rest of them as though looking for some sign.

Bull slapped a great hand on his shoulder. “Haven’t forgotten how to ride a horse, have you?”

Trevelyan shot him a look that was one part incredulity, two parts sullen resentment, then climbed up onto the mare with ease.

“I was riding horses before I was up to my mother’s _knee_ ,” he grumbled. “My family practically _worships_ horses. …’Forgotten how to ride a horse’...”

Dorian waited an embarrassingly long time for Trevelyan to drop his horse’s stride to line up with his before he realized he wouldn’t.


	4. Faith and Hot Chocolate

Cassandra did not know how once again she had found herself the jailer of a frightened, dangerous man with amnesia and a mark on his hand he didn’t remember receiving.

It was strange and humbling to recall those first days. When she had believed herself so right, full of fury and pain and fire that needed somewhere to go. Seeing Trevelyan as he was now was almost like being in the ruins of the Temple of Sacred Ashes again, only older and wiser and far, far more wary of the world that she wanted to save.

He had spoken little since they had left Sahrnia. Given Trevelyan’s state of agitation at the start of all this, it was a marked change. She would be lying if she claimed to not prefer the silence on any ordinary day, but in this case it spoke of a larger problem, and set her on edge. He lingered in the back of their group when they traveled, barely acknowledging inquiries as to his health, and whenever they stopped to make camp, he continually asked to be as far away from the others as possible. Not that he was permitted such. He had the nervous look of someone who might run at the first opportunity.

Even now, as Cassandra held to her shift of the guard rotation, she kept part of her focus open to Trevelyan, who was still wide awake.

After cajoling the healers into silence, they did not travel with their scouts, brushing them off with a simple explanation that the Inquisitor had been injured and required care that he could only receive at Skyhold. What more could they tell them? That the man they trusted with the safety of the world had forgotten them? That the person they had put their faith in was just as likely to put an arrow in their neck as their enemy’s?

She huffed and tried to center herself once more.

He had pointed an arrow at her face.

Danger was not new to her, but this was not about mere danger. This was not an enemy that could be beaten into submission. It wasn’t a crew of Orlesian assassins, or demons, or possessed Grey Wardens. If it were, perhaps it would feel simpler to her.

After everything, every obstacle that had gotten in their way—

Well, the Maker had a sense of humor.

It was a pity that Cassandra didn’t share it. She opened her eyes again. Of all the times for him to lose himself, for him to be unavailable to discuss her doubts and fears and benefit in his cold clarity, it was now, so fresh from Caer Oswin.

As she knelt and meditated, ears open to the land around them, he sat by the dying fire and traced the lines of green on his palm and wrist. Neither of them had exchanged a word all night. Occasionally, he would glance back at the tents, and though there was no indication of who was sleeping where, she strongly suspected it was Dorian’s that he was eyeing.

Eventually the silence became too much.

“The mark was smaller when this all began,” she said into the still night, turning fully in his direction. Trevelyan jumped, glancing over to her with wide eyes as he hurriedly slipped his glove back on. “Does it pain you?”

“It…” the suspicious way he eyed her felt like an accusation. Even fresh from the chaos of Haven he had not seemed so cold. “…doesn’t hurt, exactly. It’s like having…energy inside my hand. I almost don’t notice it most of the time, but sometimes…”

She nodded. “You said much the same before. I am glad that it does not appear to have gotten worse, in terms of pain.”

Trevelyan flexed his fingers, as though expecting something to happen. “What exactly is it? You called it the Anchor?”

“It…is a mark you received just before the explosion at the Conclave.” She waited for a moment to see if any of his previous confusion returned—the events of the past several years had been explained to him in brief, but it wasn’t clear to her if he’d actually been listening. Thankfully he did not look baffled, and she continued. “When you went into the Fade at Adamant, we learned that it is a sort of…magical apparatus fused to your palm. It can open and seal tears in the Veil.”

“I…see. And how does that work, exactly?”

The words were too bitter on her tongue, and she said only, “You would be better off asking Solas. He did much of the healing when you first gained the mark. –Solas is an elven apostate. You will see him at Skyhold.”

“Dalish?”

“No.”

He frowned. “Oh. From a Circle, then?”

“No.”

“Then where is he from?”

“That…” She hesitated, standing from her crouch and moving to sit by the fire with him. “That I do not know. He says a small village in the middle of nowhere.”

“Sounds convenient.”

She shook her head.

There was a kettle of Antivan hot chocolate by the fire that the Iron Bull had put together earlier, and as Trevelyan started looking at his now-gloved hand again Cassandra grabbed a fresh mug and poured him some.

“Not remembering a day or so of your life is ordeal enough on its own. Years?” She passed him the mug, which he accepted with a cautious sniff. “I cannot imagine.”

“I’d rather not talk about it,” he grumbled, eyes on his drink. “ _I_ don’t even know what to think about it.”

“Then there is something else I am curious about, if I may.” She waited for a response. It took a while—he glanced up after about a minute, blinking at her as though he simply expected her to continue anyway. “You said that you remembered being a Templar recruit. But I thought that you were a _new_ recruit at the Conclave.”

“Was I?” His voice was slow, thoughtful. “Perhaps I…rejoined. Perhaps I washed out first. --I’m barely a Templar. My training was different from most of the other recruits, and my beliefs…aren’t exactly in line with the Order.”

“You refer to your atheism.”

His gaze sharpened, teeth starting to show in what may have looked like a smile—to someone who didn’t know him, at least. “Oh, so you…know.”

His wariness surprised her. He made no secret about it when the matter first came up. He’d argued with her, and eagerly. “Is this a problem?”

Trevelyan made an unintelligible noise before stammering out, “You just—well, you wear the sunburst on your armor, so I would imagine you are—”

“Intolerant?”

“Devout.”

“I _am_ devout. And I will not lie to you. I was not always so cordial about it.” She sighed, staring down into her mug. “But things are different now.”

Faith was a funny concept. Even if the mouth of her mug were covered, Cassandra knew that there was hot chocolate inside. She could feel the heat on her hands, and remembered the sensation of it on her tongue when she first drank. It was as obvious as breathing, as clear as sunlight, and she could not, for the life of her, understand the mental workings of a man who would not only refuse to drink at all but insist the mug was empty.

Faith was the savior of her silent Vigil, the shield that protected her and the sword with which she cut down her foes.

And now, the stygian underpinnings of this world mocked her for the fool she was that she had put that faith in mortal men. The Chantry was no more the word of Andraste than Trevelyan was Her herald, and the Seekers of Truth had not been for some time.

The mug had been empty, after all.

“I—” She hesitated, weighing the value of putting him at ease versus revealing any kind of vulnerability at which he could strike. “…I find that it is good to have the input of someone who does not believe. Faith is important, but it can be…blinding, when unchecked.”

He did not respond to that, but the tension in his shoulders relaxed, and he started to sip his hot chocolate.

Encouraged, she pressed on. “I am curious why a man who does not believe—who does not even like the Order—would join it. Not once, but twice.”

“My family is on a first name basis with every high-ranking priest in the Ostwick branch of the Chantry,” he told her with a feral grin. “Are you genuinely confused as to why my parents would pressure me into joining?”

“You do not seem the sort to bow to such pressure.”

“Don’t I?” He sounded oddly pleased at that. “It’s difficult to fight the authority of the people on whom your entire life depends. I didn’t have a choice. Almost a day after I was born, my father promised me to the Templars.”

“You were promised to them as a baby, but only sent in for training as a young man? That is quite unusual.”

“You misunderstand.” He took another sip of his hot chocolate—then a full on draught, practically chugging it down. “My mother did not realize at the time what a little monster I would turn out to be, and she didn’t want to lose another child to the Chantry. So she begged for me to receive my Templar training at home, with tutors.” Then he displayed his mug to show her it was empty. Cassandra rolled her eyes and poured him more. “My family is on such good terms with the Knight Commander over there that this was allowed.”

“That is…highly unusual,” Cassandra spluttered in surprise, thinking back to all that had been involved when she joined the Seekers. It had been a reprieve from noble life. Not an additional facet to it. “One of the purposes of training in sequestered communities is to develop one’s spirituality, to be away from the decadence of the wealthy. Did they really have so much faith in your fortitude that—Why are you smirking like that?”

Trevelyan shrugged. “You’re very naïve for someone who scowls as much as you do and it’s adorable.”

Her cheeks flushed. She remembered this. She resisted the urge to accuse him of mocking her. “So Ostwick is not as pious as it likes to pretend.”

“It’s very pious. My father donates a good quarter of his earnings to the Chantry. You don’t get more pious than that, Cas—” He stumbled over her name. Like he was still learning it. All the relaxation that had crept into his posture drained out in an instant. “Cassandra.”

The crackle of the fire seemed distant, a cold chill passing over them as the wind picked up. Her armor was insulated but it still cut across her face, and she shivered.

“But they sent you to a monastery eventually,” she prodded, when he gave no further insight.

“They did.”

She waited again, but nothing. “So what did you think of it?”

He drank heavily again, almost hiding his face with his mug. “…I hated it.”

The declaration seemed to kill that line of inquiry very quickly. Cassandra fought the rising frustration in her chest. Her patience was a hard-won thing, and she wouldn’t spoil this by being the person she was when they first met.

Eventually, he downed the last of his hot chocolate and set the mug down in the snow. “So. From what you have told me, not only am I _not_ a Templar, but I am the leader of a heretical organization that has dismantled the entire Templar Order.” He let his cheek rest on his palm. “My parents must be beside themselves.”

She recalled what she knew of his parents—the things that Leliana and Josephine had told her when he had first been made Inquisitor, and his mother storming into Skyhold’s courtyard some months later. Though she had not been able to talk to the woman personally. Which was probably for the best. Cassandra wasn’t sure she would have been able to refrain from punching her in the mouth. “Your mother is.”

He rolled his eyes. “Well, of course. She’s always beside herself, where I’m concerned. I am her absolute least favorite child. I could singlehandedly save all of Thedas and she’d still find something to take issue with. Probably the way I dress.” Something in his expression shifted then. “And my father?”

“Your father is dead,” she replied, perhaps a tad bluntly.

For the first time he looked properly shocked, mouth going slack as his eyebrows lifted. “What?”

“--I am sorry.”

“Oh.” It was hard to parse the expression on his face, though that was true of him the majority of the time. He turned his gaze back to the fire, placing his hands on his knees and drawing in his brow faintly. “…I wasn’t expecting that.”

“That’s all?”

“Should there be more?”

“The man was your father.”

“We were never all that close.” He shrugged, still frowning but it seemed more a look of puzzlement than anything else. “He’s never had that much time for me. Or interest. The most we ever ‘bonded’ was him beating me at chess or fencing or—anything else I didn’t take to. I don’t think he knows—knew—what to do with me. That’s why he promised me up to the Chantry in the first place.” Then, more to himself. “If he’s dead, I wonder who’s in charge of the estate. Mother? No, she’d run it into the ground…Maxwell? –Oh, that would be rich. All his talk of ‘breaking free of our family’s yoke’…”

“A question for Josephine Montilyet when we arrive at Skyhold,” Cassandra offered, putting a hand on his shoulder—a hand that was quickly rebuffed, albeit. “She is our ambassador.”

He didn’t say anything to that.

“—I did not know my parents,” she offered, leaning in slightly. “I was raised into a life I despised at a young age. I understand being a black sheep of the family.”

Still nothing.

“If you like, we could write a letter to them. Ask how your siblings have been?”

Trevelyan continued to ignore her, staring hard into the fire before he suddenly blurted out, “—I don’t really care for this, you know. Waking up and not knowing what’s going on. Finding out members of my family are dead.”

That left her at a loss. “Well…I do not imagine many people would.”

“—And it’s not like my last memories are all that clear, either,” he added. “I can feel the gaps if I’m looking for them. Like there’s this great, smothering nothingness on several years of my life. So everything I can remember is—is old, and I don’t even know—I can’t even tell—”

When he paused, the entire left half of his face twitched hard, particularly at the mouth.

“—Now there is this _THING_ in my hand that I can feel— _thrumming_ at random points and I _DON’T LIKE IT_ —" Cassandra opened her mouth to speak, but the frenzied look he shot her cut her off. “Do you offer lessons? Can I have a few weeks to go over this— _this person whose body I am currently inhabiting?”_

“Inquisitor,” she said firmly. “Show some composure.”

He put a hand over his face and doubled over, his shoulders shaking soundlessly.

For a moment she thought that he was crying. It was a display of emotion she had only rarely seen on him, and it moved her enough that she almost reached out her hand again to attempt some form of comfort. Even if comfort was not something she always knew how to give.

Then she saw that he was not crying.

He was laughing. Gasping laughter that seemed to wrack his body as potently as sobs, face going red as he struggled to breath.

“You—find this funny?” she asked, amazed.

“No. N—n—no—” he wheezed, still cover his face with his hands. Muffling it so at least it wasn’t echoing through camp.

“Then why are you laughing?”

“I—I—”

And that was as far as he got, not enough breath in his lungs to form words. Tears did trickle down his cheeks eventually, though she suspected it was purely the exhaustion of the laughter and not of grief. Unable to think of anything else to do, she sat with him until the laughter finally died, through the trembling and chuckles that came afterward. Then she silently pulled away to resume her guard.

Cassandra could not claim to have maintained her vigil the entire night, but she was fairly certain that Trevelyan did not sleep. The next morning the shadows that always seemed to haunt his green eyes were deeper and darker—but his spirits appeared to have brightened. When Varric asked him if he was alright he responded with a chipper, “Perfectly, Lord Tethras. And yourself?”

It sounded rehearsed. But then, most of Trevelyan’s pleasantries did. Varric had been quick to correct him that “just Varric” would do, to which Trevelyan smiled wider and then said nothing.

The trip was quiet. Unbearably so. This particular stretch was treacherous, and so they didn’t even have the footfalls of their horses for company.

And this was not so entirely unfamiliar that she didn’t know where it came from. The early days had been like this too. The days before Skyhold, when Trevelyan prickled at everything and spent as much time as possible out in the woods near Haven instead of within the safety of its borders. Only, back then at least Varric had been willing to make conversation, and then the Iron Bull, whenever the air needed a bit of levity. And though he had not been there at the time, one of the first qualities Cassandra had the misfortune of learning about Dorian Pavus was that he would _not shut up._

Anytime all three of them were together, she knew she was in for annoyance without end.

_“Inquisitor—I must commend you on your choice in armor, today. Normally your appearance is very dour. Today you seem more—practical.”_

_Trevelyan, for once garbed in muted tones of green and brown instead of that ghastly pure black jacket with blood red sash, looks puzzled and pleased at the same time. “You like this outfit? –Well, thank you, Cassandra.”_

_"You are welcome.”_

_“Be careful Boss,” The Iron Bull remarks from the back. “She’s trying to flatter you.”_

_Cassandra whirls on him, bewildered. “I am doing no such thing!”_

_Now Varric chimes in. “So you’re trying to seduce him, then.”_

_“What!? No, of course n—”_

_Trevelyan raises his voice. “I am shocked! Don’t you know I am already promised to someone?”_

_She only realizes the joke when Dorian starts to bury his snorting against the back of his hand. “--Oh ha ha. Very funny, all of you. Next time you can find someone else to slay the hyenas bearing down upon camp as you sleep.”_

_"Don’t be absurd, woman! You’d let those things kill us over a little jape?”_

_"I am **this** close to killing you myself.”_

As they moved along they said nothing, as though the first one to open their mouths would be struck down by the very heavens above them.

She despised it. But she didn’t know how to break that silence.

Midway through the plateau at the end of the woods they were accosted by a pack of bandits. Nothing that they hadn’t dealt with before, and in much larger numbers at that. Cassandra’s nerves were so shot that instead of waiting for the others to draw their weapons, she launched herself at the men and women who had been unfortunate enough to pick a fight with the Inquisition.

She sustained a cut to her cheek, but they otherwise didn’t last long. Their tactical form was poor, clustered and easy to strike down in quick succession. It didn’t even occur to her that there was anything strange about how quickly she had leaped into the fray until she turned around and saw the other staring at her, having only just gotten their various weapons into their hands.

It was like they were waiting for her to tell them it was okay to continue marching.

As she wiped the blood clean and slid her sword back into its sheath, she cleared her throat.

“Well, that—” Her cheeks reddened slightly, but she did not allow that to stop her, summoning the first irreverent thing to come to mind. “That’s—that’s twelve points for me, and none for you—slowpokes.”

For one moment, during which time she wanted to draw her blade and turn it on herself, she was met with blank looks.

Then Varric put his hands on his hips, and smiled. “Not all of us have the unfair advantage of taking the lead, Seeker. I have a hard enough time keeping up here in the back.”

Relieved, she almost smiled back. “What about you, the Iron Bull? Your legs are longer than mine. What is your excuse?”

Trevelyan looked between them, a touch frantic and bewildered in his stare. The Iron Bull swiveled his one eye in his direction before giving a booming huff, shaking his head and relaxing the haft of his axe on his shoulder. “I was too busy appreciating your moves.”

Cassandra gave her customary groan of disgust, and then turned on her heel.

Though the stream of banter after that point was unsteady and stumbling, it nonetheless filled the rest of their trip, with the occasional cautious glance her way by Trevelyan’s tired and manic green eyes.

He was an intelligent man, but not a wise one. The only things he could see were what he could rationalize. There wasn’t much room for feeling, or faith, or even hope. She could not be like that. She could not lose herself to such pessimism.

If that mug was empty—

Well, she’d have to fill it herself.

They arrived in Skyhold without much fanfare, though as they’d been able to send word ahead they did have a small smattering of refugees waiting to greet them. Their little group casually moved around Trevelyan so he was largely out of reach, which showed itself as the prudent move that it was when he put his hand on his bow in alarm.

Eventually they were able to get the tiny crowd dispersed. But before they could determine where to go next, a familiar figure came bounding to them through the grass, stopping directly in front of Trevelyan with her head cocked to the side and her hands settled on her slim hips.

“You’re back early?” Sera was, peculiarly enough, wearing her best shirt, the one that only had a handful of stains along the hem. Her hair appeared to have been washed and then cut freshly and unevenly with a dull knife. “What, were they just wankers? Did they drag you all the way out there just to mop up some fussbudget Tevinter with too-big britches?”

Trevelyan said nothing in reply, merely staring at her like she were a charging druffalo, eyes uncomprehending. Cassandra had hoped perhaps to see some recognition there, but there was none.

“What?” And Sera noticed, looking to Dorian first, and then when he said nothing passed her gaze over the rest of them. “What’sit? Did something happen?”

“Sera,” Cassandra began. “Perhaps we should—talk later. The Inquisitor—needs his rest.”

“Just tell me what!” Despite the slight souring of her expression, Sera turned her focus once more to Trevelyan, moving as though to punch him—playfully, jokingly, as she had done many times. “Maybe you can—”

Trevelyan grabbed her wrist and squeezed, nostrils flaring.

Cassandra heard Sera’s bones pop.

The Iron Bull let his great hand drop on Trevelyan’s shoulder and he immediately let go, shooting a dark look behind him. Sera pulled back, eyes wide and mouth open like a gutted fish, waggling the fingers on the hand that had just been in that death grip as though to make sure she could still use them.

“ _What?_ ” Her voice shivered, and it was evident that none of them could think of anything to say. “ _This isn’t funny._ ”

Eventually Varric sighed, walking up so that he was level with Cassandra and partially between Trevelyan and Sera. “Do you want to explain or should I?”


	5. Back to Before (and everyone's upset)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the story's worth the wait, for those of you reading it. I'm making steady progress, but as always writing one thing for a long time is difficult. The first half is done, and the second half is maybe 3/5ths written.

Sera fled. She had waited until the situation was properly explained, eyes shooting between Varric and Trevelyan, then gone dashing towards the tavern, leaving _most_ of them bewildered and upset on her behalf. Trevelyan, for his part, just looked confused.

“Was she not going to punch me? –Is that not what she was doing?”

“I will go see to her,” Dorian sighed, ignoring him. “She is so very delicate, the poor thing, and requires a great deal of tact.”

As he climbed up the stairs of the tavern he heard a roar of, “ _Nug shit!_ ”, and a tankard fell with a crash to the floor below, spilling drink everywhere.

Only briefly pausing in his stride, he made his way to the little room that Sera had claimed as her own, finding her pacing angrily about.

“It was supposed to be _fine!_ ” she yelled, turning to him as though he had been there the entire time. “You were supposed to go out there and get the gits that need arrows in the face and then come back. _Normal._ You weren’t supposed to go and get him all wrong in the head!”

Dorian huffed irritably, putting his hands on his hips as he watched the tantrum. “It’s not as though we _planned it_ , Sera. Believe me, this came as much an unpleasant surprise to us as it does to you. You at least didn’t get a knife thrown at you for your trouble.”

“He threw a knife at you?” That seemed to make it worse, the anger vanishing from her stare to be replaced by panic. “That’s not supposed to be him. He can’t rag on you for shit and now he’s throwing knives?”

“—He was startled, calm down. It’s not like he’s seriously tried to murder me.”

“ _Stop trying to make it sound normal!”_ Sera started to pace again, her motions jerky and her hands on her head. “First all the arseholes at the palace, then the frigging _Fade_ , and _now_ Lex is giving everyone the shifty eye like he’s getting ready to start shooting arrows!? Where does it frigging _stop!?”_

“Sera!” Dorian put his hands on her slim shoulders, pulling her to a halt. “We are going to _solve this,_ just as we have done all of those much _larger_ setbacks that you just listed. –Why are you so worked up?”

She threw his hands off her. “Because I’m—because he’s—I DON’T KNOW.” There was a moment where all she did was stand there breathing, and then she repeated more softly, sitting down against her wide window, “I don’t know. It’s all…not right. He’s the same _person_ but he’s not the same.”

“But he _is_ the same,” Dorian protested. “He just…doesn’t remember a few things, that’s all.”

“Is he still gonna help me stuff papers under Cullen’s desk so it wobbles?” Her head dipped forward. “…Does he still like cookies?”

“Cookies?”

“That day back near Satinalia—when his mum came to yell at him about his sister and do how nobles do.” She brought her knees up to her chin as though in memory of it, brow furrowed just a touch. “It all got in his head so I asked him to come up to the roof with me. Sitting there, being all broody. --I made cookies and I told him about—well, it’s dumb. Pride cookies.” She gave a self-depreciating snort. “He said he liked me and he liked the cookies and thanks.”

“You…made him cookies.” Dorian remembered that day. That same evening Alexiel had gotten into a roaring fistfight with his eldest brother, who had been accompanying Lady Trevelyan at the time.

Sera looked up at him, and Dorian realized with a start that her eyes were wet. “I wanted him to _know_. He’s not right but he doesn’t have to be because none of us are, right? You know, the not normal people, sticking together? But if he doesn’t remember then now it’s back to _before_ and his head’s back up his arse, and, and—”

Eventually she gave up on whatever she was attempting to express, because she growled and pulled back, sniffling as she wiped her eyes and her nose on her sleeve. “Never mind. Whatever. Had things to do anyway. Let me know when he’s done with the memory shite and he’s back to normal. We’ll have cookies then. …I’ll make them better this time. Roof cookies? It’s stupid.”

“Sera…” He didn’t know what to say. “It’s going to be alright. You’re—making entirely too much of a deal about this.”

She just glowered at him.

Let it not be said that Dorian Pavus couldn’t take a hint. He sighed and bid her adieu. For now.

He could still hear her as he left.

“Stupid arsehole,” she muttered, burying her face in the curl of her body on the bench, “Getting himself conked on the head and forgetting me.”

Trevelyan was sitting in the crude bench that had been set up to observe the fights in the training yard when Dorian left the tavern, Varric sitting beside him. He had one leg crossed over the other, foot bouncing in the air as he watched two new recruits clumsily sparring with wooden swords. For all the world he looked like a stage villain concocting some nefarious scheme, his fingers steepled and his expression stone.

Varric was the one who looked up and smiled as Dorian approached. “Bull’s checking in with Krem—apparently the Chargers got back from _their_ mission yesterday, so he’s gotta get in his debriefing. And Cassandra went to find Solas.”

“The Seeker went seeking something,” Trevelyan murmured without taking his eyes off the fight.

“…Yeah.”

“What did the healers say?” Dorian asked, trying to keep his tone light. “You did take him to see them, yes?”

Trevelyan answered instead. “I’m fine. They don’t see anything wrong with me outside of a minor flesh wound. Of course, there must be something else, but we couldn’t tell them that, so they sent me on my way.”

“Well, that was quick. Not that I trust Southern medicine all that much. You do, after all, sometimes drill holes in people’s heads.” He shook his head, even as some of the tension in his chest lifted. “Meanwhile, how are your impressions of the place at first blush? Every bit as grand as expected?”

Trevelyan glanced up, then cast a look behind him. “There are a lot of people here.”

“Yes.” He paused, waiting for elaboration. It didn’t come. “Do you feel exposed?”

That prompted a bright, sharp smile. “Why? Are they going to try to kill me?”

"You sound like you welcome the prospect.”

“It’s not that I want to die. I just get to kill people if they start it first.”

“No one’s going to kill you here, Smiley,” Varric cut in, glancing around with some consternation as though in concern that they’d be overheard in this bustling courtyard with the wind howling around them. “In fact I’d say they’re all pretty fond of you.”

Trevelyan looked amused at that. “That sounds like a lie _,_ but alright.”

A bit of frustration seized in Dorian’s chest. More wasted time. –He shouldn’t just be sitting here, watching people bang dull swords against each other. “Come. I’ll give you a tour of the place. Make it feel more…home.”

Varric gave a start, sitting forward. “That’s alright, Sparkler, you don’t have to—”

“Nonsense, Varric. I am an _excellent_ host.” With a warning glance to the dwarf not to argue further (something that was received with a rare scowl), Dorian tapped Trevelyan on the shoulder and he stood, brushing nonexistent dust off of his front. “I’ll stick to the places you like; perhaps it will trigger something. Like the kitchens! You spent an absurd amount of time in there.”

“—Was I cutting things?”

Dorian paused. “—Perhaps not the kitchens.”

During much of their tour, Trevelyan stuck rather closely to Dorian; he hovered behind his shoulder, never straying too far, never giving anything more than a thin smile to anyone who greeted him. It wasn’t promising, but then he’d never been a “people person”, not really. He once explained that he had an “Inquisitor face” he would put on to lessen that particular pressure. It made Dorian wonder what he did before.

His actual reaction to Skyhold itself was more…middling to positive. He kept much of his commentary to himself, but it was clear when a certain area would catch his interest, such as the mural reconstructions in the great hall.

Perhaps his reticence was simply out of trying not to give away how new it was for him to those around them. They’d been very clear on the road from Sahrnia how important it was that his lack of memory be a secret, after all.

They lingered the longest in the library. Trevelyan spent a good few minutes simply touching the books, dragging his fingers across the spines as he read their titles, felt the bindings. It was almost reverent—a rare thing to see on his face, and one Dorian was…more used to observing when they were alone together.

“Don’t look so amazed,” he remarked offhandedly, “Half the books are rubbish.”

“Now, that’s not fair, Dorian. Have you read all of them?”

“I’ve read _enough_ of them.” Dorian indicated the shelves that framed his alcove. “We moved our favorites over here. This shelf is where you put yours.”

Trevelyan hummed and said only, “That seems detrimental to the organization of the library.”

“It’s your library. You can do whatever you want with it.”

“So I am a corrupt Inquisitor, then.”

On leaving the library they crossed through Vivienne’s “chambers”—the open space along the walkway she had simply claimed for herself. To Dorian’s immense relief she wasn’t there, and thus it was not his job to explain to her what had happened. But Trevelyan paused, eyes drawn to the curious little space.

“I would hate to sleep here,” he murmured, almost to himself, wandering closer to the bits of art and paintings around them. “No walls. Must be someone very important.”

"Vivienne grew up in a Circle,” Dorian supplied, reaching for Trevelyan’s hand to lead him along. Though Trevelyan pulled his arm back a moment after their fingers made contact, and Dorian had to struggle with the sensation that he’d just been stabbed. “Not even the most senior enchanters have doors to their rooms, or so I am told. She was offered a real room and refused. --Come, let’s not dawdle.”

Josephine and a pack of nobles found them in the gardens. Trevelyan had stopped to literally sniff the roses, eyes drawn by the diverse array of color that Elan had planted so as to almost consume the statue of Andraste that had been erected in the center, and before either of them had a chance to react, there they were.

Trevelyan seemed too surprised to even act displeased, merely staring at the visitors and Josephine alike. She explained their names—some household in Orlais, important for funding, supplying of troops to replenish what they’d lost at Adamant, etcetera, etcetera. Dorian was torn between two selves—the part of him that liked seeing social climbing go to shit, and the part of him that, well, cared.

And then, before his very eyes, Trevelyan’s countenance changed entirely. His posture straightened, his features softened, and the cold, appraising glint in his eye simply vanished.

“Hello!” he said, smile bright and lips closed to hide his teeth. One of the women in the group fluttered a hand near her chest as though she were having palpitations. “Josephine has told me so much about you all.”

_Mother Giselle tensed, something that wasn’t quite shame taking over her stern expression when she saw they had a third party watching them. “Inquisitor. I…This young man and I were only discussing—”_

_“The good mother thinks that because I am Tevinter, that must mean that I am going to seduce you into performing blood magic rituals of an unholy nature,” Dorian cut in sharply._

_“Seduce me? Really? She does?” Trevelyan glanced over at Dorian, blinking as though seeing him for the first time. Dorian cocked an eyebrow. “So he is! How could I not have noticed?”_

_It was clear from the first sentence that he was not taking the discussion seriously, and Mother Giselle’s expression took on a familiar, exasperated quality. “You misunderstand my intentions. I merely meant to express concern. The rumors from having him at your side—"_

_“But if there are rumors then they must be true! Everyone knows that all rumors are true, all the time.” Trevelyan was smiling. It was not a very pleasant smile. “Clearly he must be using nefarious means to subvert my better judgment.” At once he turned to Dorian, nudging his shoulder. “Well? Speak, Tevinter.”_

_Dorian gave him a level stare before replying, clipped, “Oh yes. Quite nefarious.”_

_“Ah! So he confesses! Shall we have a public execution, or would you prefer something more private for you and your circle of gossipmongers?”_

_“Inquisitor, really—"_

_“We could make a thing of it! Serve stuffed mushroom hors d’oeuvres that look like—like heads that have been cut off, and have a red sauce of some kind for the bloo—"_

_“That is quite enough, Your Worship.”_

When the conversation continued for two minutes in without a snag, Dorian resolved to leave it be and instead focused his attention on their ambassador, who was keeping an eye out for the best moments to step in. “Josephine dear—might I have a word?” And she turned to him, the slightest of frowns at being interrupted doing what she does best.

He hated being the bearer of bad news. To nice people, anyway—certainly he quite relished the role when it came to self-important busybodies and conceited brats, but Josephine was neither of those things and, truly, rather a sweet girl. Even to Dorian, which was exceptionally rare in the South, at least before he started kicking ass and taking names on behalf of the Inquisition.

So he didn’t really like the way her face dropped in horror when he pulled her aside and quietly informed her of the Inquisitor’s current condition.

“ _Nothing?_ Truly, _all_ of his memories?”

“As far as we can gather, everything up to ten-odd years back.” He glanced over again, where he saw the nobles were still nodding along enthusiastically to whatever bullshit Trevelyan was feeding them. “Though he’s covering for it rather well, I see.”

“So all of the _coaching_ we have done—"

“I’m sure it’s still in there somewhere. Look at him go. –Does he normally lay it on that thick?”

Josephine covered her eyes with her hand. “This is a disaster.”

“No, I dare say he is being quite likable, in fact. Can you imagine?” It was not the first time that Dorian had seen the man charm a pack of nobles. But it was the first time he had seen it with such a marked transition. There was a measure of relief, to be sure, but…

He just hated that Trevelyan knew how to put that particular mask on.

_When they were alone again, Dorian glanced over, voice dry. “’Just as villainous as he looks’?”_

_"Well th-uh—” Trevelyan stammered slightly before pointing to his own bare lip. “The mustache.”_

_“Ah.” Dorian allowed himself a small chuckle, shrugging. “I suppose I’ve earned that. –You may return to your admirers. I’m sure I’ve taken up more than enough of your time.”_

_"They won’t be expecting me back,” Trevelyan said, putting his hands on his hips. “Vivienne’s got them all herded into Josephine’s office to discuss donations. She is, incidentally, now my new best friend, meaning that your company is no longer required.”_

_A stronger laugh followed that one. “Oh, I see. I think you will find her knowledge of necromancy to be far short of your usual appetites, Inquisitor.”_

_“Well, she can talk about freezing people instead. She froze a man at a party when we first met. He shattered into a million pieces. I liked it very much.”_

_“Herded those nobles away from you not a moment too soon, I see.”_

_Trevelyan’s eyes were distant now, tapping a finger on his chin. “—The beheading party thing. Do you think we could actually do that? I really enjoy stuffed mushrooms...I suppose we’d have to find someone to behead first. Someone who’s not too useful to kill…”_

_Dorian chuckled. “You are **very** lucky the good mother supports your cause, Trevelyan. Defending me so crassly.”_

_“—Do you think I’m crass, Dorian?”_

_“I think you’re a social piranha.” He forced a bit of a smirk. “Lucky for you, I’m no stranger to that myself.”_

_“But do you think…?” He looked somewhere just over Dorian’s shoulder, mouth a thin line as he harrumphed in sudden dissatisfaction. “…Never mind. --By the way, I have it on good authority that the wine cellar isn’t going to be guarded tonight, so…if you’d like to sneak down there and steal fourteen more bottles. Just saying.”_

To Dorian’s absolute horror, once the nobles had finished meeting with the man in charge, they started rushing his and Josephine’s way. He deftly sidestepped all but one daughter, who for some reason seemed to think he was the one to gush to about how “charming” the Inquisitor was, how “heroic” his battles had been. Dorian smiled and nodded and subtly turned her away. It was only a few more minutes before Josephine was able to grab a servant to see them off.

“We are very fortunate that talking to Lord Trevelyan before they left was all they wanted,” she grumbled, readjusting the sash on her dress. “I can’t even imagine what would have happened if they were to require his presence for the trade negotia—Hang on. Where’d he go?”

Trevelyan was gone.

Dorian stared at the spot where he had been before letting out a frustrated growl. “Well, isn’t this perfect? –We should have just kept him in a camp outside the keep’s walls, _festis bei umo canavarum_ …”

Josephine’s brow set. “He cannot have gone far. We’ll split up to find him.” Striding off before he could get a word in edgewise. “–Someone should have told me. Would it have been too much to send a runner, give me time to reschedule Trevelyan’s appointments? Honestly…”

Shaking his head, Dorian sighed and glanced around the gardens, hoping to find trampled plants or indentations in the shape of Trevelyan’s boot print, but sadly nothing. He’d vanished like a puff of smoke, which meant he didn’t want to be found this time. It was an indignity, to be sure, but he would manage, simply turning for the other exit from the gardens that Josephine hadn’t taken.

“I thought he was acting strange. Not himself. Or—too much himself.”

Suddenly his way was blocked by a gangly youth in a droopy hat.

Which wasn’t to say that Cole had appeared from absolutely nowhere, as had been the case many times before becoming “more human”. But he was still, somehow, very damnably missable when one was distracted. The two of them almost collided. “I couldn’t tell. I didn’t know. But he—it’s true, Dorian?”

Steeling himself, Dorian replied, “I don’t know what you’ve overheard, but—yes, the Inquisitor has lost his memory. Most of it. –The bits relating to the Inquisition, certainly.”

The reaction was worse than he was expecting. Cole pulled away, his hands coming up to cover his temples under the hat as he spoke in a rapid, tense murmur, “No no no—he can’t go back to before. He can’t go back to how it was.”

Dorian rubbed between his eyes. “Sweet Andraste, not you too.”

“ _But he’s already thawed!_ He can’t be— _Blood pooling over the knife, my only joy, constant companion, lonely lonely lonely.”_

“What are you talking about, Cole?” When the boy didn’t have a ready answer, Dorian’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you said that you couldn’t read him through the anchor.”

“Not well. But in Therinfal, I saw him. I don’t forget—I didn’t let myself forget. Envy pulled him in his head, and I followed. He doesn’t like being in his head. I saw everything, and he did too.”

Therinfal again. This time Dorian could not pry himself from his curiosity, the temptation simply too great. “You were inside his head? …Tell me what you saw.”

Cole looked down, the low brim of his hat covering his eyes. “Broken spires, orderly stone, tangled black vines, and dead things. He buried what was alive where even he couldn’t find it, thinking it would make it safe from him, but the ground was cold and stopped it from growing. The roots that held people there were weak and so he uprooted them to make room, but Haven was a waterfall that filled too fast. Envy made him see what he’d always seen, and he was what he’d always been. But he could _see it_ now because Envy was a mirror, and it hurt him.”

Dorian took a moment to process that. Perhaps it was better for Trevelyan’s privacy that Cole was being so vague, but the descriptions still felt painful to listen to. Trevelyan made no dramatics about it, but he would often make offhanded remarks about being “wrong” inside. Like it was just a fact to be accepted. How exactly to persuade him otherwise when a demon had literally walked into his mind and told him so, well…

Cole continued. “He doesn’t know what he is, he can’t find it when he goes looking. Too much pain for _this_ , not enough for _that_. But I saw him. I know.” He sucked in a breath, the words tumbling out. “He could _hurt, kill_ a lot of people, but—he could _help_ a lot of people too, _did_ help them, and he _needed_ help, and I made a choice. To be there for him.” There was a pause, and when he spoke next his voice was flat and detached. “If necessary, like the Templars would have been there for me.”

A slow, cold anger stirred in Dorian’s gut. “You followed him back to Haven planning to kill him.”

“No!” Cole protested, loudly enough that one or two passers-by noticed. More quietly, he added, “…Only if I needed to. I _wanted_ to help.”

“So your help was either—” Dorian balked, outrage mingling with disbelief. “A knife _at_ his side, or _in_ it.”

Cole frowned. “Not his side. Probably his neck, or…one of his legs. –So sharp he wouldn’t feel it, wouldn’t see, would just grow cold and tired and slip away, gently. –Only if I _needed_ to, I am not—like that, not anymore.” Then the tight anxiety quickly returned to his tone. “Bu-but he’s my _friend_ and I’m _me_ now, and he—he can’t be _back_ , he can’t be like he _was—"_

“Just because he can’t remember anything doesn’t mean he’s somehow not himself. Am I the only one who understands this?”

“We spent so long showing him he has a face in the mirror and now he can’t see it anymore.” Cole’s head started knocking from side to side. “I-I-I can’t help him again. I can’t see enough, and it’s harder to hear than ever, and—”

Dorian grabbed him by his clammy arms. “But you’re not alone in this, Cole. –Maker’s breath, do I have to be the voice of reason for every bloody person here? It’s extremely _trying._ ”

“You’re afraid too.”

Lips thinning, Dorian swallowed and released his grip.

“He’s not talking to you like he should. Like you’re used to. He doesn’t seek your smile.”

“He has _amnesia_.” He would not let himself fall prey to petty concerns over being “rebuffed”. He refused to. His ego was not _that_ large. “He’s confused and anxious. Of course he’s treating me differently. He’s treating _everyone_ differently.”

“It still hurts you.”

“That’s irrelevant.”

That seemed to bruise Cole’s feelings, and he said, a bit more plaintive, “That’s _everything._ ”

“Well, I don’t have time for it regardless.” Dorian moved to brush past him, feeling intuitively that he would need to apologize later. “Excuse me. I have to go make sure Alexiel doesn’t run into someone he’s liable to pounce on.”


	6. A Better Man

There was commotion, out in the courtyard.

There always was, when the Inquisitor was back from a mission. Worse when there were people for him to meet, and he couldn’t just quietly slip away into the ether as he was wont to do.

Poor Josephine had been fretting all morning over whether or not he would be back in time to win over the Orlesian traders who had arrived only yesterday. So distracted that she’d almost forgotten to tie her hair up that morning, lovely picture she was with her hair down. He had watched her, wanting to offer some help, but had quietly pulled away with the knowledge that there was simply nothing in his power to make her day any easier.

She had asked him, a sad tightness in her eyes, to stop putting flowers on her desk.

Thom shook his head and forced his focus back to his work.

It wasn’t any of his business. He was just here to help other people, not himself. Or at least, that was what he told himself on good days. In truth he knew that helping people had nothing to do with his presence in the Inquisition anymore, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t still try. Didn’t mean that it _all_ had to be about…

Trevelyan. His jailer. The cold-hearted prick who had shoved him into servitude, forced his soul to remain in that cell even as his body walked free.

It didn’t do any good to dwell on it, he knew. The world had so many problems already, and his were so minor by comparison, and well-earned at that. And he had come to see, at least in some small way, that there was more to be done by living for a noble cause than dying to atone for a bad one. But deceiving people, building himself up by pretending to be something and someone he was not—

Well. He’d just thought that when he finally told the truth, he wouldn’t have to keep lying anymore. Foolish, he supposed.

The griffin was coming along nicely.

What had begun as an idle project to push back the anxieties in his mind had become a way to keep his dark thoughts at bay. The steady chipping away at the wood, the patience it took to carve—it made the world go away. The press of the cage around him, the lie that still shackled his feet and sewed his mouth shut. Each splinter of wood was another resident of Skyhold falling back, another set of eyes judging him for what he was, people who no longer believed and would never give him a chance to redeem himself. …Thom’s trial had been a private affair attended only by Trevelyan’s closest circle, but in a keep this size word still spread.

Just a little bit more work on the beak—

“What are you making?”

Thom very nearly splintered the blighted thing’s head open with a misplaced swing of his mallet on the chisel, turning to see Trevelyan standing there like some bloody ghost, eyes bright and smiling like he hadn’t just snuck up for the express purpose of giving him a start.

The griffin rocked back and forth in the silence between them, until Thom reached over and stilled it with a firm hand. “A toy.”

“What sort of toy?”

“You have eyes, don’t you?” He turned back to his task, trying not to be creeped out by that stare. There was no familiarity there, and unlike when they had first met there was no pretense of being warm, either. Just a calm, cold civility, with a glint of something darkly curious beyond it. Something that may have been inhuman, in soul if not in body.

“It looks like a griffin, to me,” Trevelyan remarked, with a glance toward the shield propped up in the corner of the barn, the one he would force Thom to use. “So does that. That’s Grey Warden heraldry, isn’t it?”

“So it is.”

Trevelyan’s head cocked to the side. “So you are a Grey Warden.”

“No.”

Maybe it did amuse him a little bit to be so brusque. He decided not to give the Inquisitor the attention he so clearly wanted, keeping at his carving and letting the loud rapport of his swings be his actual reply. Perhaps if he kept at it long enough, he would go away.

But when Thom turned to look the other way, he found Trevelyan circling around to remain in his view. “So then, who are you?”

A fruitless task, then. “Most here call me Blackwall.”

“Am I to understand that’s not your name?”

“It is the name _you_ demanded I go by.”

And finally he drew back, uncertainty lacing his expression. “Oh. I didn’t realize that…Oh.”

“Didn’t think we knew each other?” Thom pressed, the chisel and hammer fixed firmly in his grip like weapons. “Thought you had another one of your _peons_ to bother?”

“You’re set up in a barn. I thought maybe you were a new enough arrival that they hadn’t had time to give you a proper room.” The bulwark of that damnable smile came up again as he circled once more. “I don’t _try_ to be a bother. That’s just a natural consequence of me. I ask too many questions.”

“Oh _do you ever_.” It had been an endless stream at first. _What makes someone a Warden? How do you sense darkspawn? Why do wardens need to kill an archdemon? Do you have special training? Can you do magic?_ Thom had replied to each one with the insistence that the Wardens were very private with their knowledge, and when that wasn’t enough to keep the man’s curiosity at bay he supplied whatever he could come up with on the spot. “If there’s one good thing about all this it’s that your nettling questions finally _stopped_.”

Save for a small handful that had consisted largely of, _Is there anything you ACTUALLY told the truth about?_

“You’re being insufferably vague,” Trevelyan volleyed back, stopping in place with his hands behind his back. “What is ‘all of this’, exactly?”

Thom paused, finally turning away fully from his work. “You really don’t remember anything, do you?”

“I thought that was supposed to be a secret?”

“Not that you’re making it hard to guess, but Sera told me,” he grunted, folding his arms. “She was looking for a friendly ear, though I’m afraid I wasn’t much comfort.”

“Sera. –The elf girl with the—er—” Trevelyan mimed the uneven cut of her dress and hair, and without thinking Thom laughed at that.

“Yes. That one.” He quickly remembered himself, clearing his throat and furrowing his brow. “Don’t suppose you’d mind moving along, then? There’s nothing for you here.”

“’ _Nothing for me here_ ’? Wow, we must really be on bad terms.” Not that Trevelyan appeared to mind that much, judging by the delight in he said it. “The others at least pretend to like me, all the suspicious glances aside. You’re just kicking me out. I bet this isn’t even your barn. The horses are all just too polite to ask you to leave. …Have I really caused so much offense?”

Thom pinched the bridge of his nose, wondering why he would have ever thought that he would be listened to, even when the man couldn’t remember anything. Then he said gruffly, “Well… _you_ started hating me first.”

“—Really?...I don’t suppose a recap would be too much to ask?”

“A _recap?_ ” His splutter was accentuated somewhat by his beard, stupefied at the man’s cheek. “Do you think the painful events of someone’s life are a piece of theater to be recounted whenever it’s convenient?”

“Well, if you’re going to be difficult about it then perhaps I’ll go ask someone else—”

Thom’s pulse jumped, and he moved to cut Trevelyan off. “— _No._ Sweet Maker, that would be—I’ll tell you. Just—this is _also_ supposed to be a secret. And it’s not one I relish keeping, but to out it now would cause trouble for—” He sputtered around Josephine’s name. “Trouble.”

“I like trouble.”

“Of _course_ you do,” Thom growled, shaking his head.

A part of him wanted to, he knew. It was like…getting a chance to be honest from the start. He had explained it to the others in the inner circle so many times now but it had always been tainted, a bitterness on his tongue from the previous stories he’d given, edited to fit with his other falsehoods. But talking to someone who didn’t know—or at least claimed to have forgotten--

He took a breath, and began. “My name is not Blackwall. It’s Thom Rainier. I—”

“ _Thom Rainier!?”_ And to his wild confusion, Trevelyan jumped like a child and _clapped._ “I’m talking to a celebrity!”

“What? You—” He blustered, bewildered. “You know who I am?”

“Of course I do! You’re the most wanted man in Orlais! –And you won that tourney a few years before, but who gives a shit about that by comparison?” Trevelyan’s expression darkened somewhat even as Thom’s stomach was set into some bizarre mixture of sinking and flip-flopping at how he was being received. “Or you were several years ago—as we’ve established, my memory isn’t very fresh right now. –So, you’ve been pretending to be a Grey Warden, have you? _Is that why you have the beard?”_

“That isn’t—How—how could you--?”

Trevelyan leaned forward, his grin cruel and crooked. “My, what a nasty thing you did. My sister had this Orlesian friend who came to visit every now and then at the time. She loved telling me grisly stories from back home, and yours _topped the list._ ”

Thom didn’t know if he’d ever felt as disgusted and confused with Trevelyan as he did right then. “That’s—Maker, I don’t even know what to say to that. This is not—the reaction you had before.”

“And what reaction did I have before?”

“Accusations of hypocrisy? Calling me nothing? Spitting at my feet and storming off?”

Trevelyan’s head fell slightly to the side. “Why should I do that?”

It took a surprising amount of effort not to gawk at his callousness. “Because that’s what I deserved? –Andraste’s tits, I might not like what you did after that point but I don’t fault you for the anger. That at least was you being a real person and showing some actual principles for a change.”

That seemed to perplex him. “Really? Why? Bad things happen every day. –I’m certainly not one to judge. I wouldn’t do evil for _money,_ mind you--”

“No, you’d do it for fun.”

The man’s expressions were always hard to read, but it seemed worse now. He put his hands on his hips, brows drawing in but the corner of his mouth twitching upward still. “This is a great start,” he said blandly, after a moment. “The treasonous mass murderer already thinks I’m evil.”

Thom sighed, sidestepping a bit of pain at the designation—it wasn’t wrong, anyhow. “I don’t think you’re _evil_. I think that you’re…” Diplomacy was not his strong suit, but he tried to pick his words carefully anyway. “Someone who can’t grasp the consequences of your actions. The morality of them. To you there are goals, and that’s all that matters. Nevermind what you do to achieve them.”

Like good and evil deeds were recorded in some ledger, and could balance each other out. Like sending a man to die in his place and justifying it by saying he was a traitor to the Inquisition. Like letting Rainier live for his crimes and saying it’s right by the good he could do as Blackwall. But it was a lie. Those stains never went away.

True to form, Trevelyan shrugged like he was bored and said, “I still can’t imagine why I would care that much what you did, to be perfectly honest. All human beings are rotten and you are no exception. What made you special?”

Thom refused to take an absolution that was based in apathy. But something did twinge in his gut when he admitted, “I think…I disappointed you.”

_“All this time I thought you were—” Eyes full of fire, a sneer on his lips. “But you’re not a good person, are you? Just a **guilty** one. All that talk of self-sacrifice—you simply **loathe yourself**.”_

“I think you were expecting me to be better than that. I think you wanted me to be a hero, instead of just another man.”

Maybe he’d also gotten a little caught up in the look of himself reflected in Trevelyan’s eyes.

Maybe on that point at least, the fault was his.

“But that’s alright.” The hammer and chisel had slipped low in his grip, and he reaffixed his hold to have better control of them once more. “You disappointed me too.”

As he turned away he saw Trevelyan’s expression drop, saw his eyes grow blank and cold as his facial muscles went slack. He didn’t know what that meant. Didn’t want to know what went on in that man’s head. It was too much of a headache.

Better to stick to his woodworking. To the physical things that made sense no matter what words you threw at them.

He wasn’t sure how long he worked before realizing that the Inquisitor hadn’t actually left. Trevelyan had sat himself down on one of his stools, face propped up by his palm and watching him sculpt the griffin. That same empty look on his face. Thom paused, cocking a brow at him, before deciding to just ignore him. If he wanted to stare, he was welcome to it. He was, after all, in charge.

Soon enough the stillness was broken by the sound of a woman trying to navigate the uneven ground in delicate slippers with middling success. All thoughts of resentment or work fled from Thom’s mind as he looked over and saw her, the picture of radiance and grace.

“ _There_ you are,” she said to Trevelyan with some measure of annoyance. “Did you think that false trail was amusing? Because it wasn’t.”

“—My lady.” It was only when Thom spoke that she seemed to notice him, her brows lifting and a conflicted expression taking over the annoyance.

“Ah, Sir Rainier.” It was always a blessing and an invective to hear her refer to him by his real name. She didn’t do so in public. “I hope I have not disturbed you. There is a bit of a matter with—Well, by the look of things you know already, so I won’t take up more of your time with the details.”

“It’s fine. Sera told me.”

“Well, hopefully she has not told anyone else.” There was a breathless quality to her worry, and he couldn’t help frowning in sympathy. She opened her mouth again, almost like she wanted to express some of that worry to him, but—well, he’d lost those privileges, and she simply cleared her throat.

When he turned back around he saw Trevelyan had taken advantage of him moving away from the table, and was now rocking the griffin back and forth.

He didn’t notice them staring for another minute, and then when he did he simply paused, hand hovering over the griffin’s head as though preparing to pet a snake.

“—Is this not what it’s for?” he asked innocently.

“I would appreciate if you did not wander off, Lord Trevelyan,” Josephine said with a curt sniff. “Now is not the time for such distractions. You had us—worried.”

“Dorian made it sound like I should acquaint myself with the keep,” he said, hands behind his back again. “I just thought perhaps I could spare you all the trouble of giving me a tour.”

“Well, I am sorry to say that the tour portion of the day is quite finished. We have serious matters that need tending to now. Primarily your condition.”

“Which condition?”

The sun was beginning to slowly set, casting the shadows on Trevelyan’s face in sharper, warm relief. The sky was growing red.

“I would like to accompany you, Lady Josephine,” Thom interjected, unwilling to send her off with him alone, in this light.

“Oh! Well, I don’t know if that’s strictly…” She glanced between them unsurely.

Trevelyan grinned like a wolf, eyebrows arched. “I think that’s wise. I’m less likely to suck your blood like a vampire with a knight present.”

Josephine’s lips thinned as she pressed them together, unamused. “My lord, this really isn’t the time to be contentious.”

“I’m not being contentious, I’m being sardonic.” Then he turned to Thom. “--You’re looking at me like I’m not joking.”

It took a moment to get his fists unclenched. He was used to Trevelyan trying to rile him up. Even when they were on better terms he would sometimes try to poke him into breaking his composure, albeit more an affectionate game than the spiteful thing it was now. But Josephine deserved more respect than that. They all deserved better than this brat, no understanding of what they were fighting for or who he was working with. He took a step into Trevelyan’s personal space, watched his features tighten into something more subtly malicious.

Then he breathed out his anger. “Maybe it’s the teeth.”

Trevelyan’s smile dropped immediately, and he put a hand over his mouth.

Thom followed him and Josie as they brought Trevelyan back to the great steps where the others were waiting. The both of them fell into step behind her, and Thom nudged him with his elbow. “What, did you spend your boyhood eating rocks?”

Still covering his mouth, Trevelyan growled, “They _came in that way.”_

“Sure they did.”

Trevelyan continued to cover his face the entire way to the Great Hall, and made no further remarks.


	7. Night Stroll (nice try)

The weight of their eyes rested like a vice on the back of his neck, all the time.

Though Trevelyan knew himself to be alone in this room that was too large, illuminated only by the light of a particularly thick crescent moon, still he felt the lingering mark of their attention. They had not left him alone the entire evening. Every time he thought perhaps he had found some reprieve, there another one of them would be, corralling him like some skittish horse about to buck and crack a man’s head open and stain the ground with a fountain of blood because head wounds always bled so _much_ and…

What were all these **things** in his room? After despairing of falling unconscious he had climbed out of bed again to inspect the little knickknacks and trophies that littered the furniture and floor, irritated just from having to step carefully around them. A red handkerchief, a sounding horn, some trashy romance book, a wine bottle with a candle inside--useless junk without purpose. He picked up a small figurine, some old thing made of clay, and threw it to the ground when it failed to avail him of its secrets. It cracked and snapped into two pieces on the floor. Even for a minute or two afterwards, he stared at it as though its meaning would become apparent to him. It did not.

The balcony was small, and the tower was high. But he loved climbing, and falling, and it didn’t take much effort to slip away into the night through a venue that they were _not_ watching.

He didn’t have to ask himself where he was going or why. Things had seemed manageable when it was out in the woods, and with only a handful of people to adjust to, but now it was not so and the dimness in his mind had still not gone away.

So he would run all the way back to the Free Marches and try to make sense of himself from the familiar, thorny bush that was his home, where he was not expected to be charming or sensible.

It seemed as good a plan as any.

But when he arrived at the only exit to this “Skyhold” short of throwing himself over the wall, there was a large figure blocking the way.

“Nice night, huh?” the qunari said in greeting, his voice a relaxed rumble as he leaned against the old stonework. His body was not large enough to cover the entire gate, of course, but the gate was closed and he was in front of the lever that raised it.

The Iron Bull. Eye gone, leg in a brace, some fingers missing—height and weight advantage so extreme that none of those things mattered.

Trevelyan did not reply. He could not.

“I figure it must be,” Bull continued, glancing up at the smattering of stars that were flecked over the dark sky. “Otherwise, what’s the point of the stroll? We’ve already got guards for patrolling, you know. Keeping everyone safe. In case you were worried about that.” The last sentence said with a note that suggested he knew very well that Trevelyan wasn’t.

Sudden, inexplicable anger and humiliation coursed through his body, such intense hatred that for a moment he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even move. Vivid scenes washed through his mind, of slicing the Qunari’s throat open, of cracking his ribs, tearing out his horns, caving his flat nose right into his face.

Physical impossibilities, he knew.

He tried to dismantle them, tried conjuring lucid images of what would probably, actually happen. Those giant hands shattering his wrists with ease, those horns goring into his stomach, that hard body simply repelling any possible strike Trevelyan could throw at him.

Holding him down face first into the snow.

“How’s your eye?” he said quietly, perfectly still.

That eye glinted at him in the darkness. “Fine. Dorian cleaned it up for me, in case you didn’t notice.”

A bizarre twist of affection and longing shot through him like a drug at hearing Dorian’s name. Then it was gone, and he figured it had been imagined. “That’s good.”

“Isn’t it.”

They stared each other down again. Trevelyan would have thought having two eyes gave him the advantage in that, but it seemed that losing an eye intensified one’s glare. He fell first, looking down at his feet and feeling his posture shift almost involuntarily into something more withdrawn. Meek.

There was either bile or blood in the back of his throat. “What are you doing out here, in the middle of the night?”

The Iron Bull shrugged. “I could ask you the same question. Buuut as for me, I’m here to stop you running off.”

“I’m not running off.”

Trevelyan wasn’t good at lying on the spot.

“I know you, Boss,” said the rumbling voice, far too smooth and even, _practiced—_ “You’ve saved me from making some pretty dumb decisions. Or else talked me into some pretty bad ones. But either way, I’ve gotten a good idea of what kinda guy you are. I know that right now you want nothing more than to go running into that wilderness and never be found again, living off anything you can catch like some animal and isolating yourself from anyone that might ask you tough questions. And maybe you got away with that back at home ‘cause your Daddy’s estate was large enough to play hide and seek in and there wasn’t anything on the grounds big enough to eat you.”

Once more the images ran through his mind. Tearing the horns out. Stabbing them into his rib cage. Breaking off the rest of his fingers. He was starting to shake. It was starting to actually hurt. His mind felt like it was being squeezed.

Heedless, the qunari continued. “Well, this isn’t like that. You go out there, you get hurt. Probably killed. Simple as that. And my job is to protect you. So, I’m making an executive decision, and keeping you safe from your dumbass animal brain. You feel me?”

How could someone with only _one_ eye see--

“Heh.” Finally, his lungs began to spasm. “Heh heh heh heh heh.”

It was a relief, almost.

He hated having to make friends.

“I can’t imagine,” Trevelyan said, unable to wipe the ugly smirk off of his face, not even with his hands, “That I liked you that much.”

“Not at first, no.” That same, implacable smile. Never wavering. Never changing. That’s how he knew it was a lie. “But I’m a likable guy. And you and I got some things in common.”

“Name them,” he spat.

“Hmmm…” _Liar liar liar liar--_ “We both like to smash shit up. That’s one. We both like to fight.”

Fight. Trevelyan’s lungs hitched again. “I don’t like to fight,” he said slowly, eyes trembling in their sockets. “I like to kill.”

The Bull raised his single eyebrow.

“I find it,” he continued, breathing harder, clenching his fists, “A very effective method of stress relief.”

“Huh.” Bull looked away. He scratched at the dark stubble on his chin, lips pursing somewhat as though in thought. It was all very artificial, very affected. Just like the relaxed lean of his body, a ruse to invite Trevelyan to be off his guard.

But he would never be off his guard.

“I guess you’ll have to find something else for that, huh Boss?” Bull finally said with a smile too dazzling for a crude mercenary captain. “Unless you wanna see Skyhold’s dungeon? Dorian showed you that, right?”

It took a very large amount of strength for Trevelyan to keep breathing through his nose.

The Iron Bull noticed, and something in his expression softened. “Go to your room. Get some rest. You’ll be less twitchy in the morning.”

The indignant rage didn’t burst so much as climb just one level too high, and he growled, his voice cracking at the worst moment, “You can keep me from leaving, but you _cannot order me to go to my room.”_

The horrible, rat-bastard qunari finally laughed at him. It was a charming sound, and it seemed entirely genuine and without malice, which just made him angrier.

“Okay? Sure. Don’t sleep. See what that gets you. –I can tell you right now though. Tired.”

“Fuck you,” Trevelyan snarled, turning on his heel and storming away.

His back felt hot. He could feel that single eye staring at him too as he left, even when he was sure he was out of sight in the dark night. The words of the conversation played around again through his head even as they dimmed, and he wished so intensely he might cry that he had something, anything, to _strangle._

Or at least a quiet corner he could curl up where no one would find him.

It soon became clear that he couldn’t get his legs to stop moving.

Well, theoretically, yes it was possible, but there was too much energy inside them that could go nowhere else. He was not going back to his quarters. He was not going to be watched. Unless he was already being watched. –There were an awful lot of ravens around Skyhold, after all, and their ‘spymaster’ owned all of them.

He went for the battlements, the solid stone of the walls more reassuring than the earth beneath his feet. Evidently this was not an entirely uncommon occurrence, as only one or two of the soldiers gave him odd looks as he passed. Two rounds through the length of the wall, avoiding the door that led into the castle—that was the sum total of his thought for the night, and it was satisfactory. His brain felt feverish.

And then, about twenty steps away from what he’d been told was the mage research tower (locked), his sensitive ears caught a faint _meow._

He paused in his steps.

It only took a few moments for him to spot the creature, though that was more by chance than anything else. Its fur was dark—so dark as to almost be invisible in the night, save for its outline blocking the stars in the horizon as it walked along the wall. When it turned its face to him he saw bright yellow eyes gazing upon him curiously.

“Well, hello,” he said, walking closer, all grim thoughts forgotten.

The cat mewed at him again. He held out his hand the way he had once done with the cat that had kept his home’s granary clean of mice, allowing it to sniff him cautiously before lightly sliding his glove over its head and down its back. Its body almost seemed to ripple slightly as he did, shimmying under his touch but not pulling away from it.

“Hello,” he said again, softening his voice as he repeated the motion, though this time scratching lightly behind its ears as it sat and preened. “And what’s a pretty thing like you doing in such a cold place as this?”

Naturally, the cat did not reply. It merely purred and blinked at him slowly, tail twitching.

“I like cats,” he murmured, sliding off his glove as he resumed stroking its soft, silky fur. He could feel its little shoulder blades through the skin on its back and that gave him goosebumps. “What a charmed life you must lead. Just killing and sleeping. I feel I understand your kind a little better than mine.”

The cat licked its paw, unconcerned. Trevelyan grinned.

“No one expects you to be anything you’re not,” he continued, digging his fingers more in the scruff of fur that was thicker around the back of its neck, watching its eyes close. “People give you space when you bare your teeth. Or at least they should. –Human beings must be so insufferable.”

The cat meowed, abruptly standing and arching its back in a simple rolling motion. He dutifully stroked over its fur once more, feeling its tail just slightly curl around his hand as he finished. Then the cat stretched, and as it did so he saw the tips of its shiny, razor sharp claws poking out of its little toes.

With a soft sigh, he turned away to look out over Skyhold. This ruin, still in repairs from what he could gather was many lifetimes of disuse, full of pilgrims and refugees and soldiers who looked at him like he was a saint. Very keenly did he feel the disconnect between what he was and what they saw, and the consequences of being found out seemed so dire. “I don’t know what they want from me. I don’t know who any of them _are._ The ones who already hate me at least don’t make me nervous…”

It wasn’t the blind panic of waking up in that snowy forest pursued by strangers. But the uncertainty and confusion ached in his bones, and there was nowhere for it to go. Nowhere for him to go. He was standing in the impression of a man he had never met and could never hope to be. It was like when his father exiled him to Templars. Only, at least there no one had ever expected anything of him. There was an _understanding_ that he was to be avoided and dismissed, and that had given him breathing room.

He slumped over the edge for just a moment before taking in a breath and pushing himself up. “Well. Whatever. I’ll make it work.”

When he turned back around, the cat was gone, and in its place was a woman.

Trevelyan slapped a hand over his mouth so that his startled yelp didn’t echo through the keep, stumbling backwards until he very nearly toppled off the wall. The woman—raven black hair, eyes the same sharp yellow as the cat’s—merely smiled at him, folding her arms in a manner that seemed less protective and more smug.

When she started speaking he was caught up in her voice, at least enough to keep from doing something stupid. “So, it’s true. The Inquisitor has lost his memories. To a mere bump on the head?” At those words she tapped him lightly where the blow had been on his temple, and he flinched. “Most curious. And doubtful, at that.”

“You were a cat,” he said dumbly, every nerve on edge. Not sure whether fight or flight would be appropriate in this scenario.

“There are few things more refreshing than spending an evening in the form of a nocturnal creature. Tell me, do you always go around petting strange cats, my Lord Inquisitor?”

He opened his mouth, and then closed it again.

The woman—who was so obviously a mage—was practically topless in her ensemble, which had been retained during the shapeshifting process. Trevelyan would be lying if he tried to claim that it wasn’t attractive, the exposure of her skin almost innocent in its shamelessness, but with so much going on these past few days touching a strange woman’s naked body (even in cat form) was not high on his preferred list of activities.

He shook his head, heart beating far too fast for his liking. “I—I apologize. I…well, I thought—I th-thought you were a cat.”

Amusement danced in her eyes. “Oh yes, that was clear. Rest assured, if I found your touch displeasing I would have been more than happy to inform you.”

The sound that wheezed out of him might have been a laugh. He fumbled for his internal scripts, the rules of politeness drilled into him at a young age. “You-you-you have me at a disadvantage.”

She laughed, rich and elegant. “That is always the case, but I will reintroduce myself for your sake. I am Lady Morrigan, arcane advisor to the Inquisition, former court enchanter to Empress Celene.”

She didn’t look like she came from court. She looked like she’d stepped out of some obscure part of Fereldan. But he wouldn’t say that. “I’m—I--you know who I am. Were you—looking for me, for something?”

“Oh no. ‘Twas only by chance that I was out here tonight. I was previously making preparations for a journey to Denerim, as I…informed you before you left.” She glanced back in the direction of one of the towers briefly. “I shan’t be gone long, but it cannot be delayed.”

“I see.” His hands came up, a faint grin forcing its way on his face. “Any, uh—any chance that I could go with you? To see Denerim? For…Inquisitor business.”

Morrigan just smirked. “Best time you returned to your room, yes?”

“I can’t sleep there,” he protested. “It’s full of junk.”

“If you would forgive the impertinence,” she said, a gleam in her eye that made him somewhat afraid, hands on her hips in a tilt that was…somewhat distracting, “I have often seen you stealing away to the room belonging to Lord Pavus. Or vice versa.”

“Ah. Lord Pavus. Yes.” His heart thudded again. What was that? It was—painful, but not in a way he could describe. It wasn’t even entirely unpleasant. “And, um…” He swallowed, glancing around as though someone was going to walk in on the two of them. “…Where might I find Dorian’s room?”

She pointed back the way he’d come. “Through there to the rooms above the gardens. You’ll know it’s his door. He has wards that give a nasty shock to anyone who enters without knocking.”

Trevelyan’s eyes swam slightly as he nodded. He wasn’t good at directions but he was excellent at finding things.

Morrigan stretched, back cracking as her skin started to emit pale purple light. “–Best of luck, Inquisitor. I shan’t like to contemplate the fate of Thedas without your efforts.”

Then there was a whisper of magic, and the small black cat vanished into the night.


	8. Delicate

_“Welcome to my parlor, said the spider to the fly,” Trevelyan burbled from the far wall of the cellar, sprawled out below a rack full of wine bottles. He had one short, fat bottle clutched in his hands, a stranglehold on its neck as he attempted to right himself._

_It was a curious thing, to see the man drunk after spending so much time in his company sober. Even on the rare evenings that he joined the rest of the soldiers in the tavern he barely touched his glass. “Are you calling me a fly?”_

_“You have such lovely gossamer wings, Dorian. Stand in front of my mirror so you might appreciate them better.” He appeared more considering as Dorian approached, eyes bleary yet retaining a degree of focus. “Would you like to be something else? A beetle? A shiny beetle? You certainly can’t be a bee. –At any rate, I am the spider. As I have told you.”_

_Dorian cocked a brow at him. “You detest spiders.”_

_“Ahhh.” Trevelyan threw an arm over his face in mock horror. “I have inadvertently revealed to you my deep-seated self-loathing.”_

_“I thought you told me you don’t drink.”_

_“I don’t.” He sniffed, wiping at his nose. “I really don’t. I can’t see straight. Am I going to die?”_

_“Depends on what you have.” Instead of answering, Trevelyan held up the bottle so that the label could be seen. Dorian slipped it from his grip. “’Ritewine, Vintage Warden Daedalam’? You got drunk off **Conscription Ale?** ”_

_Trevelyan attempted a sitting position and was partially successful, a petulant note entering his voice. “Blackwall says Wardens drink it.”_

_"Blackwall wouldn’t know good booze if it turned into a darkspawn and started talking to him.”_

_“A talking darkspawn.” The proclamation came with cackling and hiccups, and Dorian thought rather affectionately Trevelyan was actually an adorable drunk. “Always making with the clever…ness. You’re very funny, Dorian. I—I like…talking to you.”_

_He was reminded, briefly, of snide insinuations in dark corners by people who did not realize they were being overheard. “…Would you mind if I join you?”_

_"Only if you’re drunk too. Otherwise I am liable to humiliate myself.” Trevelyan idly stroked the neck of his bottle in a way that made Dorian’s mouth dry._

_He made a show of rolling his eyes, though went to select a bottle of his own nonetheless. “It will take three times as much wine, but I can make an attempt.” The glass was dark, and if he squinted he could see himself in its polished surface. As he plunked down to the floor, taking a healthy swig, the Inquisitor scooted over to sit beside him, humming some bizarre, discordant melody that he must have heard in an opera somewhere._

_They sat there drinking for a little while, just the two of them. The warmth of his company making its way through Dorian’s cold exterior, tangling his usually clever tongue in knots. At this point he realized that this was a mistake, perhaps even a spider’s web after all, but it was too late to pull away now._

_Instead he asked, “What’s got you down here?”_

_“I am a coward!” Trevelyan declared with a grin on his face. “And so I am drunk—drunkin—drinking. To avoid thoughts of my cowardice.”_

_“Cowardice?” Dorian blinked, confusion clouding his thoughts. “You’ve never struck me as a coward. –I don’t think anyone could claim such, the way you leap head-first into danger.”_

_For a moment Trevelyan almost seemed to ponder that, before making an exaggerated shake of his head. “Well those things don’t frighten me,” he said dismissively._

_"Nearly being eaten alive, burned, skewered, or possessed doesn’t frighten you?”_

_“No.”_

_Dorian snorted. “That’s easy for you to say.”_

_"It is!” The brightness seemed to flicker, then. Trevelyan ran a hand through his hair, pulling his bangs back over his head. “--Sometimes it’s very hard to—say things. I’m always suspicious of people who find it easy.” Then he said, more deflated, “I was suspicious of you. Before, when you were still—new. I’m sorry. I thought you were one of those people. I don’t anymore.”_

_"So it wasn’t being from Tevinter that did it, hm?” Dorian quietly laughed. “I think you will find I have no difficulty at all ‘saying things’, so your suspicions on that front are quite correct.”_

_The grin that Trevelyan gave him was much more vicious then. “Not everything.”_

_The accusation cut him to the quick, and true to form the words vanished._

_Trevelyan went on, ignoring his sudden silence, “That is why I am a coward, Dorian. I consider you a—a—a friend. And I haven’t done anything about it until today. That’s why people like her go around— **talking** about you. That’s why they think it’s okay. I’m not used to having friends. I don’t know how to—show it.”_

_It was far more than Dorian had been expecting from him, and it left him oddly stunned. “I…” When did his tongue get so dry? How hard could it be to say the sentiment was reciprocated? “—I detest confessions. So you will pardon me if I can’t respond in kind.”_

_“You’re so melodra—melodra—over the top? Dorian.” Trevelyan hummed again. “But you’re here now, so you must find me at least a little likable.”_

_A little likable._

_Yes, at least that._

_But suddenly now they were friends. Now, when Dorian had spent night after night wondering what it was they were, exactly. If there could be something there. He can’t have been the only one to notice—to see the looks they exchanged, the little word-game flirtations that skirted the edge of appropriate. And yet Trevelyan alternated so frequently between an almost distressingly acute mind and complete and utter obliviousness, so…perhaps it truly was one sided on his end?_

_Maker help him Dorian really wanted to **know.** He wanted to hear it from his lips. “—You have Chantry mothers accusing me of being in bed with you, you realize.”_

_Rather than indignation, anger, disgust, or even an immediate reciprocation, Trevelyan responded by bursting out into a fit of giggles._

_“What?” Dorian leaned in a little so that their shoulders were touching. The reaction was novel enough that he wasn’t as offended as perhaps he should have been. “What’s so funny about that?”_

_“Th-they think—When I’m—As if you would--" He continued to laugh, tipping up the wine and spilling about as much over his chin as in his mouth. “—And I see you watching Bull. He’s big. You like it. Admit it.”_

_Dorian hadn’t thought he was that obvious, face flushing from both the drink and mild embarrassment. “—Don’t be absurd. As if I could ever be charmed by that unwashed barbarian’s flexing.” Well, certainly not **recently.** “And I’m sure I must tell you every day how much I enjoy watching **you**. Those muscles of yours, that sleek black hair—that delightful posterior…”_

_Trevelyan laughed harder and slid down a little against the wall. “Stop it, I can’t breathe.”_

_Perplexed, Dorian leaned in so that there was only a few inches of distance between their faces. “Why do you think that I’m joking?”_

_“Well—because you are. Aren’t you?” Trevelyan set the empty bottle rolling with his hand, appeared to listen to it clink against the tile with some relish. “I’m not the kind of—well **I** would certainly, but— **you**. You’re too good. And I’m too me, all teeth and no heart. I’ve done the math.”_

_“No heart?” Dorian pressed a palm to his chest, prompting another round of giggling on Trevelyan’s end. “Seems to be there, to me.”_

_“There you go again. You’re too clever for me, Dorian. You’re so— **much** , and I’m…not.”_

_His self-deprecation was completely shameless and unabashed, spoken as though simple fact. Dorian felt a pang of sorrow for him. “Ah, so it’s my **much** ness that intimidates you.”_

_“You have a lot of muchness, Dorian. All of mine is just my Inquisitor mask, you see. The rest is bad books and blood.” Trevelyan paused. “—And I’m not intimidated.”_

_“I think you have somehow arrived at a much higher opinion of me than is reasonable. I am sitting here drinking with you in this squalid little dungeon, after all.”_

Dorian didn’t realize how little time he actually spent in his own room until he was suddenly sleeping in it again.

True, sometimes Trevelyan would come down here. The room was cramped with all of the books and supplies Dorian had to fit inside, but evidently this haphazard clutter was the decorating style the man preferred, so he fit in just fine. There was the added bonus of Inquisition scouts not knowing immediately to look for him here (though they figured it out eventually), and Dorian’s better taste in drapery meaning they could sleep all morning without the sun getting in the way, if they so chose.

And still, he had spent more time in Trevelyan’s quarters.

It was warmer in there.

None of his books had anything that could solve their current predicament. The closest that he could find was a single tome on blood magic he had been able to locate, and even that had been very clear that if someone were to erase another’s memory for the purpose of controlling them, it would require constant maintenance and a steady supply of raw power to keep it in motion. Or else so much power in the initial spell that the target would be reduced to a catatonic invalid. Frustrated, he tossed the whole works into the corner and practically fell down to the mattress with his head in his hands.

Nights like this—restless nights where his mind was awake despite the aching of his body—he would seek out Trevelyan, who would inevitably be awake himself because the man never slept. Pull him away to some quiet nook where they could just…talk. About anything. There was no topic under the sun that was off limits, no direction their discussion couldn’t go. It was just a matter of which of them talked more. Even when he was deep in magical theorem and Trevelyan’s eyes were glazing over he still felt listened to, still had someone there to pour out the half-baked ideas that were springing up in his head. Or at least distract Dorian by rambling excitedly about staged beheadings where the disembodied head winked at people.

It was nothing of any practical substance except it made him feel calm and quiet by the end.

And he wasn’t that, now.

Tomorrow would be a day of work. Why could it not be tomorrow already?

Why could he not have him back already?

Why did he let them capture him?

Was he just the worst that Tevinter had to offer?

Dorian pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, unable to pin down anything more than a general feeling of absolute misery.

_“What do you think?” And there Trevelyan was, bracing himself with a hand on the tile, his eyes glistening, expression earnest. “The rumors. What do you think about them? You asked what I think but you didn’t say what you think.”_

_Dorian sucked in a breath. Several images flashed to mind, remnants of…imaginings that came to him when it was dark and he’d been reading for too long. “You would like my opinion?”_

_“You’re stalling so it must be terrible.”_

_It shouldn’t do this to him. How many men with whom had he been in this precise position? But those had never mattered. Those had been games. It was all Dorian knew how to do, and he didn’t want to play games anymore._

_Oh well. Too deep in it now. He’d finished his bottle._

_“Well, I’m trying to think of how I might phrase it.”_

_“You could try being straightforward.”_

_“You wish me to be frank? Direct? Candid?”_

_Impatience started to creep into his voice. “All those things, yes.”_

_“Very well. If you insist.”_

_Heart hammering away in his chest, Dorian leaned in and kissed him._

_Trevelyan’s entire body jolted as their lips pressed together, but he didn’t pull away. Though he was slow and slightly clumsy as he returned the gesture, he wrapped an arm around Dorian’s neck, drawing up more against the wall to give himself purchase. Trevelyan was wearing his fingerless gloves today, and the pads of his fingers were ice cold from the stone of the cellar floor._

_The kiss was—not as he expected. It wasn’t sloppy from drink, not spurred on with tongue or pushing teeth. Trevelyan was slow, hesitant, affectionate—as though trying to compensate for his inebriated clumsiness. It could have gone on indefinitely, twisting into something much more intimate, or it could have gone on for only another second. Dorian was suddenly, inexplicably terrified to push in either direction, lest he make it something it wasn’t. He pulled away from Trevelyan, deciding on neither._

_\--Though he couldn’t help himself from lapping slightly at the wine on his chin._

_"Oh,” Trevelyan said breathily, lips flushed and parted, eyes wide as he looked at Dorian, bangs tousled over his face. He leaned forward as though to follow back into the kiss, and promptly fell over on his side in a daze. “Oh.”_

_“You seem positively giddy, dear Inquisitor.” Dorian felt his blood rush uncomfortably. “Perhaps there is a heart in there after all?”_

_“Get down here,” came the slurred reply, Trevelyan clumsily reaching up for him but failing to get a grip on anything. “Do that again. It’s been so long since I’ve—just like you did. Please?”_

_Maker, it had been some time since Dorian had kissed someone, too. He’d convinced himself that he’d become immune to falling—now he realized that it was only because it’d been so long since he’d stood on the edge._ _And so he obliged, and the second was much like the first. Just the press of their lips together, a little nip with his canines. Then Trevelyan groaned into his mouth and he **felt that** so strongly that he had to pull away again. “I think perhaps that’s where we should stop.”_

_“Stop? Stop?” Trevelyan made no move to stand or even sit up, just rolling a little so he could keep Dorian in his sights. “We don’t have to stop there, we can—stop elsewhere. Stop when we’re done. When we’re—” He shivered, eyes darkening. “You can—if you want to.”_

_“I think not.”_

_“No?”_

_“Oh no. Drunk sex isn’t nearly all it’s cracked up to be, I’m afraid.” His hair was so soft. Dorian idly ran a hand through his bangs, the drink making him presumptuous even as it continued to terrify him. “Especially with a lightweight who can barely stand.”_

_“Oh noooo…” Trevelyan cracked up again, curling up on the floor where he lay. It was sort of like watching a large panther luxuriate on a fine rug before a roaring fire, and Dorian swallowed somewhat thickly. “That’s me. I’m the lightweight who can barely stand.”_

_Dorian would like to call himself noble in this regard, but he knew at his heart it was just as much practicality as anything else. Drunk sex was often sloppy, hard to remember, under-negotiated, and over far too fast (even assuming one participant didn’t fall asleep or vomit on the other first). All of which would have been enough of a damnation without its inevitable effects on the “after”._

_He couldn’t even count the number of times he’d had a man blame every loving word and deed on the drink the next morning. Even if all they’d consumed was a single glass of sherry. Spiteful shit that he was, he was never giving anyone that kind of out ever again._

_And besides. Having an after meant that it would be over, too._

_“…I really am quite fond of you, you know,” he whispered. Trevelyan did not reply, though even lying down his eyes were still fixed on Dorian’s face, far more alert than they had any right to be, given how intoxicated he was. There was something…oddly charming about it. Dorian did so enjoy being watched. “Might I expect you are fond of me, as well?”_

_The initial reply was a stuttered sound that might have been a yes, before Trevelyan suddenly declared, voice halting in odd places, “I’d like to have—you—on a necklace. Your eyes and teeth and fingers and—everything. I’d wear it all the time. I’d keep vials of your blood. –Not to do magic with it,” he added at the end hastily, as though that was the suspect part of his sentence. “Just to—all the pieces separate first and then—together?”_

_“I see...I suppose that’s flattering?” Though really he had no idea how he was supposed to take that, aside from some slightly concerned arousal._

_“I will dream of eating your insides tonight,” Trevelyan said seriously. “That is what spiders do.” And then he burst into more hitching laughter._

_Dorian rolled his eyes, standing. The room wobbled just a touch, but then he wasn’t positive that was the fault of the drink. He held out a hand, pushing down the heat at seeing those wide eyes upon him and saying smoothly, “Come now. I’ll help you to your room, you disturbing creature.”_

It would have been a lie to say that the knocking on his door woke him from anything resembling sleep, but it still sent an unpleasant, irritating jolt through his system nonetheless.

Dorian staggered to the door, hair in all directions, clothes in disarray, fully prepared to fry whoever was standing on the other side if the problem was anything less than Corypheus opening a rift right over Skyhold and unleashing a horde of darkspawn to charge through their gates.

On the other side stood Trevelyan, who blinked as though not fully expecting to see him there.

All irritation washed away in an instant.

His posture was strange, slightly tilted to the side as he fiddled with his fingers. His eyes wouldn’t meet Dorian’s directly, more aimed at the floor by his feet when he started to speak. The pervasive tiredness that had hung faintly about him the entire road back to Skyhold was more palpable now, bags under his eyes.

“I apologize for waking you,” he said slowly. “If I woke you. I can’t sleep. –Perhaps that is obvious. I apologize for being obvious.”

“How did…?” Leliana had ordered her people to watch his door. Keep him from wandering. Dorian had been very cross at her for it. Now he realized he needn’t have bothered.

At a loss, he simply moved aside so that the man might enter the room, an invitation Trevelyan appeared to deliberate over before accepting.

“My room is—very large, and it is full of things I don’t—recognize. I am sure that when I recognized them they were very comforting, but right now it is junk and it is unfamiliar junk, and I—” He scratched his cheek, straightening so that he no longer appeared so off balance and turning his gaze directly on Dorian’s face. “Did we sleep together? –I don’t mean sex. I mean I assume we were having sex. --I mean sleeping. Was that something we did—together?”

“It was.” A smile twitched on his lip. “That was rather something you insisted on, actually. I was perfectly content to slink back here when we were done. Were you…?”

“I can’t sleep. I haven’t…been. Sleeping. Much. I think I know why.” Trevelyan swayed where he stood. His eyes moved to stare at the wall, speech slightly stilted as he continued. “I know I said I needed—space. And I still need that. I want it. Very badly.” When he swallowed his breath caught. “But, ah—how do I put this…?”

Briefly wondering if he was cold, Dorian turned slightly to stoke the sluggish fire with a wave of his hand. Predictably, Trevelyan’s attention immediately snapped to the flames, their glow reflecting in his eyes.

“My…my head…” he continued, walking over to stand by the heat. “My head has forgotten. But I think my…my body—still. Remembers. And it misses you.” He laughed, mirthless and jittering. “I can ignore it—sometimes. But it’s late, and it’s dark, and it’s cold, and it’s—it’s—”

Dorian moved to his side, gently nudging his shoulder to turn around so they were facing each other.

“—It’s been a _very weird day,_ ” Trevelyan finished.

“I’ve never been very good at denying your company,” Dorian said honestly, surprising himself enough to stumble in the next sentence. “If…you would like to sleep beside me, I promise not to take advantage. Hand to my rotten, black heart. It would take ever so long to clean the stains out of my sheets, you see.”

Trevelyan stared back at him for a moment, eyes appearing almost sunken and wide in the fatigue written on his face. Then he made a sickly smile. “Your blood stains.”

“My, someone’s confident in himself. Did I mention I can bend the primordial forces of the world to my will?” Dorian gingerly reached for him, pulling him into his arms. “But this is an expensive set. A gift from you, actually. And I’d not like to ruin it. We had _your_ bed for that.”

Trevelyan did not return the gesture, but after a moment he stiffly rested his chin on Dorian’s shoulder. From right beside his ear he heard at least twice the sound of taking in a breath to speak, but then Trevelyan said nothing.

His body was trembling. Dorian could feel it as he slid his hands down to his waist, a nearly imperceptible shiver that intensified as they stood just a hair’s breadth from each other. “You really have nothing to be afraid of,” he said softly, almost imploringly, his heart starting to ache. “I’m not nearly as frightening as all that. I’m quite nice, actually.”

“I’m not afraid.” A high, nervous chuckle followed that, something tinged with hysteria along the edges. “And I can’t tolerate niceness. It makes my insides twist. I put on my face to make the _nice people_ go away.”

“Well, I can also be very _not_ nice, as well.” Pulling back just enough to press a kiss to his temple, Dorian maneuvered Trevelyan to sit down on the bed, kneeling briefly to undo his boots at least. He didn’t fight—the nerves that appeared to have taken over his mind gave him a somewhat disarming submissiveness, but then Dorian also knew from experience how quickly that unassuming demeanor could change. When he crawled onto the bed himself, Trevelyan hurriedly moved to make room for him. “I _could_ threaten to turn you inside out with a snap of my fingers, if it would so please you? –I bet given enough time I could do it, too.”

Trevelyan curled up on the mattress, grabbing one of the pillows and hugging it to himself almost like a shield. “That actually--unsettles me.”

“The man who has threatened my life not so much as ten minutes ago and several times before has the nerve to call _me_ unsettling.” Dorian was careful to not to encroach too much on his space, but he did nudge him with his foot. “But then, perhaps he’s right. I am from Tevinter, after all.”

Eyes flickering with drowsiness, Trevelyan smiled weakly at him. “There’s no need to be rude.”

The bed was simply not large enough for the two of them to lie comfortably with a “safe” distance between them, and as they spoke Dorian settled closer, enough that he could feel the blow of Trevelyan’s shaky breath. He allowed the pillow to remain between them, even as the irrational part of himself bemoaned how this was supposed to be the point in the night where they held each other. “Then we shall be polite monsters, the both of us.”

Rather than reply, Trevelyan tilted to press his face against the mattress. It was hard to tell at his angle but it looked as though his cheeks were burning, shoulders trembling. Dorian resisted the urge to offer comfort in his embrace. The surety he had once held that his affection was not only allowed but desired had, quite understandably, left him for now. Instead he just focused on pulling up the blanket.

“This bed,” Trevelyan mumbled into the sheet. “It smells like you.”

Unable to help himself, Dorian passed a hand through his hair. Though first Trevelyan flinched away, he soon relaxed at the touch. Thus encouraged, Dorian worked his fingers down to the back of his neck, then down his shoulder blades, and was rewarded with a faint, pleased hum.

“It’s a good smell,” Trevelyan continued after a moment, voice swallowed by yawning. “I feel as though I…know it…”

Until he heard soft, easy snoring, Dorian didn’t stir, aware that any jolt, any sudden movements, would break the delicate balance they had managed. But as soon as that freedom was available to him, he sat up and looked over Trevelyan more fully, took in the curl of his body and the peace in his expression. He wanted to commit it to memory.

It was hard to know the value of having another man to sleep next to until he was alone again. He had thought—well, Dorian had spent so much of his life sleeping by himself that he had thought it would be easy to return to if need be. That if a confused and addled Trevelyan needed space, he could easily withdraw and simply wait for a time when his presence was desired again. It was the simplest thing in the world. Why should he expect otherwise?

To be here with him now felt like being allowed to exhale after spending days holding his breath.

“What a bizarre creature you are,” he said, quieter than a whisper. “To make me need you for something I have been able to do on my own since infancy.”

There was more he wanted, so much more, a tidal wave of desires that churned inside him now that this closeness had been re-established. But he could be patient. Perhaps there would be talking to do, when they had this sorted out. Things that he could—say. Things he could wrap up in clever words, because that at least was an art form he had mastered.

“ _Why yes, Alexiel, you are the only man I’ve ever slept beside. Is that what you meant?”_

Dorian put an arm around him, breathed deep and took in the faint smell of petrichor, and drifted off into slumber.

_True to expectation, Trevelyan had only the dimmest recollection of the conversation they had exchanged the night before, and seemed embarrassed at the mere mention of the things he had babbled while under the influence._

_But he remembered the kiss._

_He told him that he wanted more._

_Dorian knew what “more” meant._

_Friendship. What a thing for him to ruin._


	9. What We Learn in Dreaming

_Solas can’t get him to sit down._

_Normally it’s an amusement—Trevelyan radiates energy here that he only expresses in part in the real world, jumping off balconies and running up walls. His thoughts are rapid and varied, though unlike the real world Solas at least is able to see the connecting links between the seemingly unrelated topics._

_Tonight is different, however. Tonight he wades through Trevelyan’s dreams with a purpose, one that is hard to carry out with a man who is buzzing in his seat. He drinks tea the way Pavus guzzles down ale, cup after cup until he has consumed the whole pot, and still it does not soothe him._

_“Now there are leaves in my mouth,” Trevelyan complains, dropping the cup to the floor so that it shatters, the individual pieces scuttling away._

_“Yes, you have identified why tea is disgusting.” Solas almost chuckles, but the situation is just a little too dire for him to be in his usual mood. “I need you to talk to me, Inquisitor. I need you to think.”_

_“Can I draw something? I want to draw something.” Trevelyan’s leg is bouncing. His teeth are razor sharp, and the Anchor is spider-webbing almost to his shoulder. “You’re always painting, Solas. It looks like fun. Do you sketch it out beforehand?”_

_The paintings are around them in the rotunda are in motion even as they speak, scenes of battle and history playing on loop. Solas is proud of them—they are much more glorious here in the Fade than in the living world, able to express in full the emotion behind them. But he regrets their being a distraction in this particular instance._

_There are some nights when Solas can easily maneuver Trevelyan into a quiet state of contemplation, perhaps by shifting location or providing amusements such as he was used to in the real Skyhold. But this is not one of them._

_He sighs, summoning a quill and parchment for Trevelyan, setting it down for him. Immediately the man gets to work, scrawling out disembodied eyes, hands, and hard circles that in the real world would have threatened the wood of the table. There is little elegance to his style, poor refinement. The schools of art often found in Chantry-aligned world bear far too much slavish devotion to the realistic, little creative interpretation in anything save for idealization. Solas thinks that Trevelyan’s artistic venting would be more productive if he wasn’t hampered by this—clearly the man has difficulty with complete thoughts already._

_He pinches the bridge of his nose._

_Trevelyan is almost never lucid. Sometimes it will be like the first time, and he will come to a moment of realization where his mind will snap to, and see the dream for what it is. But he has never lasted for more than a few seconds before he tumbles from the Fade into the waking world. Almost never will he remember. The fact that someone so severed from the powers of the Fade is able to attain awareness at all is extraordinary, but once inured to that fact Solas has found himself wanting more._

_Finally he appears to have settled on a picture. Solas leans over his shoulder, brows lifting. It’s a mackerel. Drearily well-detailed, but it also isn’t finished yet. “Does this really help you focus? –Is he meant to be your friend?”_

_Trevelyan waves him off, focusing entirely too hard on rendering the scales. “He’s not a friend, I’m killing him. You don’t kill your friends.”_

_Some unexpected sadness leaks into Solas’ voice. “You hope not to.”_

_Trevelyan shakes his head. “I don’t hope for anything. –What do you think?”_

_“It’s certainly a fish.”_

_He scratches at the picture, and the fish is scaled by the sweep of his fingers. He tears and tears and its insides are spilled over the page, until all that remains there is a lump of meat._

_“Is it still a fish?” he asks, eyes bright._

_Solas gently slides the parchment away from him, maintaining a calm voice. “Inquisitor, you remember me, don’t you?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“The Inquisition, the Breach, Corypheus, all of the people in your circle—you remember them?”_

_“I do.” Trevelyan cocks his head to the side. “But I feel like I have a blanket on my head, Solas. It’s heavy, it’s hard to see through it.”_

_"A blanket?” Of course, he’s already come to the conclusion that none of this seems consistent with head trauma, but it’s good to get confirmation. He allows himself a smile—sees Trevelyan react, perking up as though this is some kind of praise. …A part of Solas hates how impressionable he is in the Fade. Another part revels in it. “Can you describe it any further than that? It sounds as if you are under some form of memory dampening spell.”_

_Trevelyan’s leg starts to bounce again, and he frowns. “I think it was someone I left in the dead box.”_

_“Someone you left in the dead box?” Solas blinks, once more trying to be patient. It’s difficult, he knows, to keep one’s mind clear while wandering in dreams. But he also can’t escape the conviction that everyone **should** be on his level, and that it is a fault of theirs if they are not. “Inquisitor, you must be clear. What is the nature of the spell? How was it cast?”_

_“Do you want to know how? Would you do this to me?” He is startled to see that when Trevelyan glances back in his direction, there is hurt in his eyes and a soft tremor to his voice. “Would you make me forget you? Make me alone? Would you hurt me like this, Solas?_

_“I…” He’s not prepared for this display of emotion, and is unable to school the rush of shame. “I would not wish to hurt you unnecessarily.”_

_As soon as it arrived, the tremor is gone, and Trevelyan’s face is blank again as he looks down upon the table. “Why is it necessary?_

_"The more prudent question would be how it was performed. –So that I might help.”_

_"Oh, well, I already know that.” Trevelyan looks around at the walls and the moving tapestries on them. It is clear that his focus is waning, but Solas finds himself growing frustrated. “I was awake when he did it, you know. –Solas, some of these don’t have anything to do with the Inquisition. Where did you see those?”_

_He can stand it no longer, letting out a growl and leaning in to grip Trevelyan’s shoulder with his hand. “Please, Alexiel, you must focus.”_

_The point of contact ripples from Trevelyan’s shoulder through his whole body, and then through the rest of the tower around them._

_He looks up, suddenly._

_“This isn’t real.”_

_And like a whisper he’s gone._

Solas took a breath to keep his frustrations from showing openly on his face as the little ring of mages quibbled with each other.

Forays into the Fade usually left him invigorated, refreshed his clarity of mind. But today he awoke with more questions than answers. Of course he had hoped that this meeting would provide some for him, but it was not looking terribly promising. This was a delicate matter, and not one he wished to see left to the lesser skills of this little “meet-up”, Dorian and Vivienne aside.

Though the latter was late. Unusually for her.

Trevelyan had expressed an interest in recruiting both the mages and the Templars back when the war was ongoing, and had pushed the Inquisition into recruiting the Templars first by arguing they would never be invited inside a fortress like Therinfal with a mage alliance, but that the mages could be persuaded to join with a Templar one. No one asked what sort of persuasion he had in mind with Templars under his heel. Solas thought the answer wearingly obvious.

Trevelyan immediately disbanding the Templars the moment he had the opportunity had given him pause, but how exactly he would have proceeded from there—if there was in fact a more delicate touch in the works--was something they would never know now.

The mages—Rebels, Loyalists, even many of the isolated actors avenging themselves on the surrounding countryside—all but a scant handful had been pressed into service by the Venatori before the Inquisition could pursue further contact.

A few had been captured alive during all of the chaos at Haven. It had taken time and a great deal of resources deprogramming them, but some measure of mercy had been achieved. For whatever wisdom it was worth to recruit one’s former enemies—Solas thought back somewhat bitterly on the Grey Wardens, but dismissed it. The rest of the Inquisition had been reassured that these were the best of the best, and such measures were worth it. Even Vivienne had stood by this, which was no small feat.

Speaking of—

The clack of her heels on the wooden floor was unmistakable as she ascended the tower, and instantly all the arguing came to an abrupt halt.

Vivienne had a way of commanding the room that Solas found himself occasionally in envy of. Most of his authority, whenever he held it, came from loyalty, not a demanding presence. But then, he thought to himself with some measure of disdain, cowering others into fearful, awed silence was not an admirable trait.

The only one of them who spoke up as she moved to take her seat was the brooding elf at the corner of the table with sharply accented Orlesian. “So good of you to finally join us, Vivienne. We would just hate to interrupt your busy schedule of schmoozing our noble guests.”

Vivienne set down several scrolls in front of her as she adjusted her seat, nonplussed. “Of course, Grand Enchanter. This ‘schmoozing’, as you call it, is quite important work, after all.”

Grand Enchanter—not a title that was really appropriate to apply to Fiona any longer, given the circumstances, but Vivienne was such a stickler for the old protocol. Solas surmised this was less about paying deference to the woman who had been her superior, and more because without the old structures of Thedosian “mage society” Vivienne had very little place at all.

Indeed, Fiona no longer even had the position she’d carried as leader of the Rebel mages. She bore the scars of her capture openly; a damaged eye covered in cataracts, scars over the right side of her face, a slight limp when she walked. She had the respect of many of their researchers, if only through reputation, but it was clear that events had taken their toll.

Solas had seen her in the tower, once or twice. Whatever had been done to her, removing its effects had left her largely nonverbal. She was evidently still _capable_ of speech, but outside of one-word replies she refused even to speak to Trevelyan, if his exasperated complaints were to be believed. Her rebuke of Vivienne was the longest sentence he had heard her utter.

But then, perhaps that was simply a matter of perspective. He despised being here, after all, among these people so warped by their own ignorance of the powers they possessed. Perhaps she was on friendlier terms with her former Circle brethren.

As a first matter of business, Vivienne turned to Dorian, her painted eyelids fluttering. “Dorian, Josephine tells me you were showing him around Skyhold yesterday. What made you think that was a good idea?”

‘Him’ of course being their addled Inquisitor.

Never one to take an insult sitting down, Dorian braced his hands on the table, an aggressive grin on his face. “Couldn’t possibly tell you what I was thinking. Perhaps I was under the blind misconception that it would be best for him to be familiar with the place that he _leads._ ”

Vivienne didn’t flinch. “We should be keeping him away from the rest of the Inquisition at large until he has recovered. Letting him talk to the riffraff almost spoiled everything.”

“Yes, because that’s certainly going to make him feel welcome and comforted here. Being treated like some animal that needs to be caged.”

“We cannot consider his feelings alone, though unless I miss my guess I _doubt_ he is very pleased at being the subject of so many stares.” Vivienne’s nails clacked against the wood of the table, and Solas thought with some curiosity that he detected a note of defensiveness in her otherwise icy tone. “My darling, do you honestly believe it would do any of these people good to learn that their leader, the person they have put their trust in, currently has no idea who any of them are or why he should care about them?”

Dorian’s smile remained on his face, though his brows tightened. “I would like to kindly remind Madame de Fer that I am not, in fact, an idiot.”

“Is that all we will do, this squabbling?” Fiona interrupted, before they could get much further. Vivienne and Dorian’s animosity never evolved to the point of screaming matches, but they could, as Solas could attest, spend hours reveling in their own wit with their passive aggressive needling. “You two can play ‘whose staff is more _expensive_ ’ on your own time out in the field. How Trevelyan _looks_ or _feels_ is irrelevant to the task of taking down Corypheus. Or is that suddenly not your concern?”

Solas nodded with her, but said nothing.

She eyed him for a moment before glancing at Dorian. “You said he has forgotten himself? Completely?”

“Not completely. Just the past few years, I think.”

She nodded, arms folding as she gave the wood a hard stare.

It was almost a minute before she spoke, long enough that the others appeared on the verge of talking themselves. “There is a mage among the Venatori ranks,” she said softly, though her tone still harsh. “Who specializes in twisting the mind in more subtle ways such as depriving one of memories. Using blood magic, of course.”

Dorian scoffed, brow creasing. “The kind of blood magic you’re talking about is only possible when within range of the caster. To make it long-lasting like this—there would most certainly be more obvious signs of it. He’d be confused, disoriented, not just--”

“ _Don’t tell me what is and is not possible, Tevinter_ ,” she snapped, leaning forward and putting a hand on the table. “Do you want my input or not?”

Solas had to resist the urge to chuckle at seeing Dorian deflate. “Go on. Tell us who this mage is.”

She shook her head. “I do not know his name. Only his trade.” There was a pause, where she appeared to take a moment to collect herself. He felt a flare of impatience, but quickly schooled it. “He was not the only one involved, but he primed me for my…recruitment. He put me back—back somewhere I would not wish to be again. Made me forget much of what had happened since.”

When next he spoke, Dorian’s tones more careful. “How was he? –Dry sounding, almost bored, I assume? Pretentious? About ah—your height? With short brown hair?”

Fiona narrowed her eyes. “…Yes.”

“Huh,” Dorian grunted.

Solas lifted an eyebrow at that.

Heedless, the man continued, more distractedly, “But how could such an effect linger without regular blood to sustain it? The magic can’t run on nothing, you know.”

“It does not have to run on nothing,” Solas mused, more to himself than anyone else. “Only a source that we have not yet accounted for.”

“Ah yes, I forgot about the cloud of blood that doggedly follows Trevelyan’s feet wherever he steps,” came the irritable reply.

But that just got him smirking. “You joke Dorian, but that’s not terribly far from reality, is it?”

“Well that’s—that—That’s neither here nor there.”

And then, someone new chimed in, “If he were to prove amenable, I would suggest another physical inspection.”

Everyone present turned to the calm, feminine voice at the top of the stairs.

Solas repressed a shudder.

“Helisma how long have you been eavesdropping?” Vivienne demanded, painted nails tapping on the wood of the table.

Helisma, lingering where she stood with eyes that expressed no guilt nor embarrassment, replied, “I apologize. I did not realize this meeting was secret.”

“The Inquisitor’s amnesia is not something we want to be spread around,” Vivienne persisted, tone stern—though she needn’t have bothered, as it clearly had no effect on the Tranquil before them.

While most of the other mages present turned their heads away in discomfort, Solas forced himself not to look away from the sunburst on her forehead. He’d been horrified and disgusted by a great deal of what he’d seen in the last year alone, but this custom of severing “problematic” mages from the Fade on the slightest of faults was one of the most barbaric—moreso that it was _accepted_ , even if that acceptance came with the belief that it was a “necessary evil”. Helisma’s eyes were glassy and empty, and when she talked it was less like a person communicating and more like some detached force was using her mouth to speak.

And still she continued. “I am capable of keeping a secret, Madame de Fer, if you think it beneficial to the Inquisitor. I would prefer not to see him lose what he has built.”

Just like that, he couldn’t help himself. “You would ‘prefer’?”

That cold gaze focused on him. “He visits often in the library. To see Master Pavus, yes—” There was a bit of blushing where Dorian sat. “--but he will take the time to speak to me as well. To discuss my research findings and bring me materials. He has even expressed an appreciation for my company. For my…calm and intelligence, as he puts it.”

“Truly?”

“That I cannot gauge. I believe he had no reason to lie.” She looked down to her hand, and Solas saw—for the first time, so distracted by her face--that she had a package in it. “If it reassures you, Madame, I was already aware that there was something amiss with Lord Trevelyan when I saw him in the library yesterday. I came up here to deliver some materials for a poultice. It was my expectation that he was suffering from a more physical ailment, but these ingredients could also be serviceable for ritual use, if you suspect a magical cause.”

There was the click-clack of heels, and Vivienne took the package in hand. “…Thank you, my dear. I am sure with your outstanding record this will be of great help. You may go now.”

Helisma gave a nod before she left, expression blank but the slightest hesitation in her body language.

Curious.

A memory of emotion. A fragment of what once had been. It was painful to be around the Tranquil, not because they were totally empty but because they were not.

No sooner had Vivienne sat down than there was another voice putting a halt to the proceedings.

“Fiona?”

Fiona perked up at the sound of her name, walking over to look over the balustrade to see Warden Mahariel standing at the entrance to the tower below.

“We’ll be heading out to Denerim soon. Did you still want to join us?”

The battered former Grand Enchanter hesitated, and for a fleeting second as she looked back to her chair Solas saw something that might have been tenderness in her eyes. “I…Yes, I—let me prepare. My things are still in my quarters.”

And that seemed to be the end of her participation. Before she left, she took a glance back at the assembled mages. “There is not much more I can tell you. I hope I have been of use.”

“You have,” Dorian assured her, still frowning at the table.

Their discussion progressed little after that. It _would_ , of course, be the case that the only Tevinter mage in their midst was the one who only started researching blood magic after it was very nearly used on him. But still, they were able to arrive at two modes of action nonetheless. Unraveling the spell on Trevelyan, and finding its source. The latter would be the fastest way to determine how to do the former, but there were still several methods they could try blind, using the materials that Helisma had provided and some supplies that their Arcanist could direct them to.

“I’ll inform our little war council. I might know some things that could help,” Dorian offered at the end, standing with a slight cracking of his neck. “Who wants to go fetch Dagna for the rest of the ritual supplies we need?”

“Leave that to me,” Solas said.

He left alone, hands behind his back.

He found Trevelyan in the Undercroft discussing enchantments with their Arcanist. Though, discussing was perhaps too strong a word for it. It was more that Dagna was rambling on and on and Trevelyan was listening, his leg bouncing erratically as he sat haphazard over the work table, a chair as a footstool. He was bravely putting on a calm front, but it was clear to anyone who wasn’t engaged in a lecture on the properties of demon runes that he was glancing around for some sort of out.

It was a feeling Solas knew well. No matter how well intentioned or kind, sometimes entertaining the chattering of other people could be very, very tiresome. Especially if you weren’t used to them.

Ironically, he often found himself in that exact position with Trevelyan.

“Dagna,” Solas spoke up. Trevelyan glanced at him with an expression that looked like a mix of trepidation and relief. “Madame De Fer requests your presence in the mage tower.”

“Oh!” She smiled, bubbly thing that she was. “I shouldn’t keep her waiting—It was great talking to you Inquisitor! You should come down here more often, you’re so busy.”

Trevelyan, who had likely gotten perhaps two words into the conversation, nodded mutely as she went. When the door at the top of the stairs slammed shut, it was just the two of them.

“Did you…” he began haltingly after some time, eyeing Solas as though wondering if he should toss him over the open ledge. “…Need me for something too?”

“No.” In Haven, Solas had disliked Trevelyan’s scrutiny. He had been still unaccustomed to being out in the open, so used to working in the background or on the sidelines, and had feared in a small way that it would force his hand. But now he recognized it as ultimately harmless to him, and smiled, leaning on the wall. “I merely find this to be a rare opportunity for comparison.”

“Comparison.” Trevelyan continued to size him up for a moment, and, predictably, failed to do so correctly. In the next blink the man was smiling, if not warmly then with some cheer. “Ah, you must be the non-Dalish, non-Circle elf mage I have heard so much about.”

“You are perceptive.” It was one of his most admirable traits, and Solas bowed slightly in deference. “It is good to see you in fine health, at the very least. I trust you slept well?”

Something in his smile twitched, and for a moment Solas thought with some anticipation that he had remembered his dream. But Trevelyan merely replied, “I did. Better than I have been. Why?”

“No reason.” And he left it at that, watching as his taciturn responses started to wind Trevelyan up.

“—You know, when I said I had heard all about you, that was a lie. That sentence was the sum total of what I know.” More fidgeting. “Just so you are aware.”

Solas couldn’t help himself another enigmatic smirk.

Trevelyan narrowed his eyes.

They had recognized each other as secretive men, in Haven. It had begun almost a game of cat and mouse between them—Trevelyan’s insatiable curiosity digging for whatever information Solas could provide, and Solas slowly discovering more and more about this man over to whom he had accidently handed the power to do—

Well, everything.

A layer of superficial charm and agreeability covered most of his personality flaws and social eccentricities, and it was a mask that Solas would sometimes find some amusement in getting him to drop. Underneath he was irreverent, blunt, and simple-minded. He was obsessive and paranoid with periods of mania that he did not seem particularly able to control, and a thirst for destruction that was unfortunately common of his kind. He disliked being around others, and even seemed to hold contempt for the very notion of social interaction that didn’t have an underlying purpose behind it. Solas had fed him knowledge feeling at first only the small comfort of being able to share what he knew, not even holding the dim hope that it would be retained for anything more than its pragmatic ends.

In that at least, he had been reassured. Trevelyan was intelligent, able to make hard decisions without letting them weigh on his conscience (assuming he even had one), and very capable of the role that he had stumbled into. Defeating Corypheus was, at least somewhat, within reach.

As time went on, however, things…shifted. Not just in Solas’ perceptions, although he was forced to admit that perhaps he had judged his character too harshly and too quickly. But in Trevelyan’s behavior too. In who he was not just around those he led but around those with whom he had grown…close. He became someone different, someone…more confident. Friendlier. Brighter.

That first night that they’d walked in the Fade together, he had found Solas in his dreams without even trying.

Trevelyan hadn’t even known he was dreaming. He hadn’t known that the Skyhold he prowled was not real, spirits wafting through its halls instead of people and furniture in odd places, books flying like birds. He had found Solas in his rotunda and lit up with glee. “I’d like to know more about you”, he’d said.

They had talked, Trevelyan an animate stream of questions and observations he had never shared, spiraling thoughts that were too fast for his mouth and, in fact, seemed to echo through the space without being voiced. And in spite of himself, Solas had…liked this side of him. It had been a very long time since he had encountered someone who simply wanted to _learn_ , not because he hoped that knowledge would have uses, but because knowledge itself had value.

The curiosity this man showed had sparked Solas’ own. He had gently taken Trevelyan’s dream and sculpted it into Haven, and watched those emotions that had been so limited and singular before become potent, alive, visible. Sorrow, loneliness, frustration, but triumph and awakening, too. The Chantry, a sanctuary and a prison, his bitterness at having to stay, his hope at not having to go home. The arrival of Corypheus, the first time he had ever been moved by something larger than himself, not hatred for the unknown but an awe and intense longing for it.

He allowed himself to be candid, then, and saw Trevelyan’s keen attention to detail seize upon a single inconsistency in his memory to unravel the clutches of the dreaming on his mind.

And he became lucid.

That should have been impossible. Mortal, human, non-mage. It was like watching a disabled child learn to walk. Solas had felt astonished joy, _pride_ , confusion, and a realization that Trevelyan had come to them broken, _but not hopelessly so._

It was certainly an injustice, to see him back to this. He could understand why Cole was so distraught. Solas was far too keen to analyze, himself. To see what was different. Certainly, this was similar to Haven, but to a greater degree. As though he now lacked many of his adult experiences that made him feel secure in himself, if not the rest of the world. How old was Trevelyan again? Dorian had said a few years were missing, but Solas reasoned it could have been a much more significant chunk.

“This memory loss you are experiencing,” he said finally, realizing that he’d been silent for some time. “We believe it to be the result of a spell.”

Trevelyan perked up, teeth showing in a smile that was quickly repressed. “Do you? Then you can undo it.”

“That is the idea, yes.” He couldn’t sense any particular aura on his person, but hiding such things was simple if one knew how. “It will require some preparation, of course, during which time we will need to act. The one who cast the spell is still out there, after all.”

“Well, it’s a start. It’s something to _do._ ” Trevelyan folded his arms, leaning back. “I prefer…things to do.”

“I know.”

Trevelyan’s brows furrowed again, but before he could say anything further one of the Inquisition’s runners came into the Undercroft. “Inquisitor! They are requesting your presence in the War Room.”

On went the superficial charm, Trevelyan hopping to his feet and smiling without showing his teeth. “I’ll be right over as soon as I’m done conversing with my—my colleague here.”

She glanced between them, but didn’t move.

His lips peeled back. “Thank you.” That did the trick. When she had left, Trevelyan turned to Solas, brows furrowed. “I have a whole room dedicated to war?”

One of Solas’ ears flicked before he said, a slight curve on his lips. “Very funny.”

The smile that graced Trevelyan’s features then, shy and unprompted, was oddly rewarding. “And yet, you aren’t laughing.”

“The War Room is accessible via the main hall, the first room to the left after your quarters,” he said simply, straightening up and giving another cursory bow. “I won’t keep you, Inquisitor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was playing Inquisition and had Trevelyan basically just interrogating everyone about themselves, and Solas responded to his request for information with "why"
> 
> Well, I imagine Trevelyan just standing there gobsmacked.


	10. A Brief Cameo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had so many technical issues playing Origins that I likely won’t be inspired to write anything substantial for my warden, but I did want to have written her at least once (even though she’s not really the subject of this fic at all). She used to be the focus of my obsession once upon a time.

She could hear them talking in the war room, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to interrupt.

It was awkward, this position that she held, not being in charge. Not because she particularly liked being in charge, or being thrust into dangerous situation after dangerous situation. But because it was what she was _used to_ , an intrinsic part of her very being. And it wasn’t like she didn’t have hard journeys waiting for her still, oh no. But Skyhold was—well, it wasn’t for _her_ , was the thing.

It was just hard for Mahariel to figure out what was expected of her when it was all on someone else’s shoulders instead. Should she barge in? Linger outside the door until one of them left?

She pressed her ear flat against the crack in the two doors and listened, their voices startlingly clear.

“—spies have tracked them down to Colmar out near Val Chevin. Trying to pick up recruits among the locals with anti-mage rhetoric. Likely, to replenish the numbers they lost at Emprise du Lion.” Leliana.

Mahariel pulled back, looking for a knot in the wood that she could look through. There was no keyhole, and the doors were flush with each other, leaving little peering space. Finding nothing after several minutes, she scowled and resumed her eavesdropping, cursing herself for losing out on valuable conversation context.

“…seems unlikely that he’s with the Templars, if it really is him.” Less familiar to her, but based on the accent, the Tevinter. “He was always a glory hound. Whatever partnership they had, the moment they proved themselves incompetent enough to let the Inquisitor loose he would have cut his losses and set out on his own.”

Another voice, less steady in its timbre than she was used to. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here.”

“Beg pardon, Amatus. It’s easy to forget you when you’re sitting there brooding in the corner.”

Mahariel fought back a smile at the begrudging grunt and the sound of a chair scraping the floor.

Skyhold might not have been for her, but it had been a lovely host all the same. It was rare to see the kind of comradery that still colored her nighttime reveries when she was feeling wistful, not since she had started on her mad little quest to cure the Calling. And these people, they had something. The same thing she had once had. And it had this unfortunate effect of making her very nostalgic and emotional, which led to her wanting to throw her arms around her two friends she’d thought she’d never see again, and certainly not _together,_ and cry her eyes out.

Very troublesome.

Fiona and Morrigan were both waiting on her, but she didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye to Leliana.

She worried about what this Inquisitor Trevelyan was turning her into.

Oh, she liked him enough. It wasn’t that she didn’t _like_ him. He made the right jokes, he carried himself well in battle, he watched out for his people when they fought. And really, a lot of her friends took pride in how quickly they could kill things—she wasn’t terribly picky.

But liking someone was one thing, and trusting them was…

“Pursuing the Templars sounds like the best immediate course of action.” Another face that had been a surprise. Unforgettable. The entire year of the Fifth Blight was too firmly burned into her memory.

“You _would_ say that.” Nevarran. Too unique to misplace, must have been Seeker Pentaghast.

“—Because they’re our only lead! We know where they’ve been! It gains us nothing to chase ghosts!”

Cullen—he certainly didn’t look the angry, psychologically eviscerated boy from Kinloch Hold, but then these days he didn’t look the confident general either. His eyes were sunken and bruised from lack of sleep, his frame a bit more fragile. The result of Lyrium withdrawal, so she’d been told. Encouraged to wean himself off the stuff by Inquisitor Trevelyan. And it was entirely possible, sure, that this was for his own good. She’d seen what lyrium did to people. Assuming the withdrawal didn’t kill him, over time his body and mind would recover, and he would be well. Maybe even serve as an example to others looking to leave the life.

But until that time it also had the nice benefit of making him easier to control. Take off the Chantry’s leash and put a different one on in its place. The people who kept him fed, and washed, and alive while the withdrawal and his duties took their toll, the people who surrounded him in his most vulnerable moments—all Inquisition.

It wasn’t for her to judge.

Just to notice.

Cullen wasn’t a friend. But Leliana? Mahariel had shed blood and tears with Leliana. Leliana was _family_ , and she would not let her be swallowed up into the Inquisition without a lifeline.

It was possible she was being too cynical.

Could a Grey Warden, ever be _too_ cynical?

No.

With a start she realized that her thoughts had blotted out more of the conversation, and she harrumphed as she pressed her ear back to the door. This was the kind of thing that never happened when the adventures were for _her._ Conversations didn’t move forward until she was ready for them to.

“Marcus? Marcus Valens?” Trevelyan was spluttering. “You didn’t tell me _Marcus_ was leading them. —He wouldn’t work with a mage. Venatori or otherwise. He’s stupid like that. Stupid and obsessed with _following Chantry Law._ ”

“So you remember, him, do you?” Leliana again. “But you don’t remember what you told us about him before. You were less confident in his uprightness then.”

It was…upsetting, to hear the coldness in her voice.

Perhaps it had grown naturally. Perhaps there had been a very gradual decline of the cheer and whimsy to her tone, the vivacious curl of her accent. But Mahariel hadn’t seen the shades of change, and so the suddenness of it slapped her in the face every time.

“Well I—” Trevelyan stuttered, his voice dipping in volume and forcing her to strain her ears. “He’s not upright. Just obstinate. –I don’t know what I told you before but I know that’s true.”

“Nonetheless, we cannot rule out the possibility that Marcus and his Templars were involved. It is too much of a coincidence that he was in the area.”

“What if they were there because they were hunting the Venatori?” he persisted, his voice raising slightly. “As splinters of an organization whose purpose is to _hunt mages_ that’s—not outside the realm of possibility, is it?” There was a pause, likely where Trevelyan waited for a response and received none. “Isn’t it?”

It was Dorian who spoke next, his voice a very peculiar pitch. “Who is he to you?”

“No one.” Said so hastily that it was impossible to believe him. “Nothing.”

“Marcus was an old paramour of the Inquisitor,” Cullen clarified, either completely tactless or obtaining retribution for some perceived slight. “Back when he was training as a Templar.”

“An old param--You lied to me?”

Ooh. Drama. There was no sound for a moment, and once more she cursed their lack of keyholes. Dorian sounded amazed. Like the very notion that Trevelyan would lie to him was simply out of the question. Which was a bizarre thing, considering he had lied to her at least 5 times within the first 10 minutes of their introduction. Though, perhaps those hadn’t all been intentional.

The shocked silence maintained itself for a few moments before he suddenly blurted out “No. Never mind. –Excuse me. I’ll go fetch the others. Let them know what the plan is.”

Mahariel heard footsteps swiftly approaching the door and felt a jolt. Before she could do more than scramble away from where she’d been listening, she found herself face to face with a stormy-eyed Dorian Pavus.

The moment he saw her whatever it was that was twisting the lips under his mustache was dismissed by his surprise. “Oh! I—Hello, er, Warden-Commander.”

She tried not to squirm. Hearing a man of his status refer to a Dalish elf such as herself by title was a ridiculous thing to be pleased about, but it still gave her a little wriggle of delight. Nonetheless, it wasn’t in her nature to be terribly expressive, so she just smiled and brought up her hand. “Greetings.”

“You—have you been waiting out here?”

“Waiting? Um. No. That would be weird.”

"Well, much of the meeting is over, so if you were wanting to--erm."

It would be a lie to say that she didn’t have her danger instincts screaming pretty heavily any time she had to interact with a member of Tevinter’s mageocracy. Pavus in particular was of the charming variety that pretended to be a harmless fop in polite company and then was capable of unleashing literal unspeakable horrors to turn a battle if the fire and lightning didn’t do it. That he had seemingly genuine noble intentions just made him even more dangerous. He could be trusted—as much as his cousin back in Tevinter could be trusted, which according to Alistair was a lot—but she didn’t think she’d ever be off her guard.

She wondered if the delicate way he comported himself around her was a result of him picking up on this, or if it was just a man sensitive about the fact that _his_ people had been enslaving _her_ people for all of recorded human history.

Hilarious, if the latter.

She looked around him, caught the glinting eyes of Inquisitor Trevelyan as he glanced at her. She’d never seen that bright shade of green on anyone who wasn’t a cat, and always wondered if the mark on his hand was to blame.

The Antivan diplomat—Josephine--came out after him, clipboard in hand. “I don’t like this at all. –How long will it take to resolve this running up and down the Hinterlands? We have already been receiving multiple petitions for aid from Orzammar regarding a matter in the deep roads. They suspect a rift is involved, which means we need the Inquisitor to deal with it _personally_.”

Dorian turned to her, hands on his hips. “You just love to throw him at every dangerous and unpleasant problem you can find, don’t you?” he snapped.

“In fairness,” Mahariel butt-in brightly, “He seems to like to throw _himself_ at the dangerous and unpleasant things.”

For her trouble she received a glower and a sneered, “I didn’t ask _you_ , did I?”

There was a beat where she saw the imperiousness of his countrymen in his eyes, and then he blanched at the look that was suddenly in hers.

“—I apologize. That was--untoward. I need some air.”

“Being able to breathe is good,” she commented, watching him leave.

When Trevelyan finally left the room he was being led along like a prisoner by Seeker Pentaghast, her iron grip on his arm. Though he didn’t seem to mind much, smiling cheerily at Mahariel as they passed and blurting out, “I like your tattoos!”

“I like your giant eye,” she returned.

He frowned at her. That was only natural. He wasn’t wearing that breastplate now. But she did like it.

As the two of them left she could hear faintly, “Cassandra, was that a real Grey Warden or another fake one?”

Cullen stepped out next. It wasn’t immediately apparent how much weight he had lost due to the volume of his coat, but it showed in the way he carried himself, and the hollow bruising under his eyes. Still, his gaze was clear today, and that was really all one could hope for from a Templar. She gave him a curt nod and he scuttled away, clearly uncomfortable with her presence. He always refused to meet her eyes. Perhaps she reminded him of poorer days.

That was a mutual thing, really.

Then it was just Leliana standing at that map, arranging pieces and humming a distantly familiar tune to herself. She didn’t glance up as Mahariel approached through the doorway, but she did smile slightly and say, “I was expecting you to have left the keep by now.”

And that spoke volumes, didn’t it? Because if Leliana expected something, that was because it was the reasonable thing to happen. Why linger shyly outside, waiting for her chance to speak? There was a weakness inside her that asserted itself whenever friends were involved. Morrigan had commented on it, too. Not now—back at the Eluvian all those years ago. Back when Mahariel had thrown her arms around her and cried as they said their goodbyes. “ _So clingy for a hardened warrior!”_ she had griped.

“Clingy” was never a word Mahariel would have thought to use to describe herself. Loneliness was familiar to her. It wasn’t like she feared it.

She’d always been a little different. Never in a way that made her disliked, or outcasted, no matter the fact that she was the product of a clan transfer. Just that little bit harder to talk to. Just that little bit easier to let sit outside the light of the campfire when Hahren Paivel told his stories of glory days.

A talented hunter, and the first of her age group to get her vallaslin, and instead of making her popular it had made her intimidating. Any attempt to compensate for this with an easygoing demeanor and a joking manner had failed miserably, because people evidently didn’t think it was normal to joke in the face of defending one’s home from ravenous wolves or torch-bearing shemlen. There were a handful who weren’t put off by her, but they were either too old or else Merril, always sitting sequestered amongst her books and spells. Mahariel had only one real friend in her clan, and he—he…

Then there was, of course, being a Dalish elf among shemlen. And, more recently, a Grey Warden among Dalish elves.

Well.

Anyway.

“I didn’t want to leave without getting to talk to you,” she answered truthfully.

“Morrigan felt no need to make such goodbyes.”

“You know her. Big softie, but only on the inside.”

Leliana’s small half-smile briefly became a smirk. “More on the outside now, I think, with her son.”

Ah yes, the son. Kieran.

Creepy little kid.

Mahariel braced her palms on the Waking Sea and hoisted herself up to sit on the war table, careful not to knock over any of the little pieces lined up on it. Curiously, she reached down to pick one up in her hand. It looked like a small raven preparing to take flight. More like it littered the map—some of a set of keys, some of a lion with a thorned circlet in its jaws, but most were like the one she held.

“I’m surprised you two aren’t more chummy,” she said, setting the piece down. “You used to talk of doing her hair, makeup, shoe-shopping…Also you’re not camping in forests together now, are you? There’s actual shoe shops.”

“I’m afraid we no longer have the time for trivialities like that, my friend,” Leliana remarked grimly, continuing to arrange her battle plan as she spoke. “…And she won’t let me.”

Mahariel grinned. “You shouldn’t let that stop you.”

“You will be seeing the king of Fereldan while you are in Denerim, correct?”

The brusque reply punctured some of her cheer, and Mahariel nodded. “We will be seeing Alistair, yes. …That is why we are bringing Kieran along.”

“I hope you will not be gone with Morrigan long. The Inquisition still has need of her expertise in finding Corypheus’ next target.”

Mahariel sighed, kicking her feet back and forth before hopping down from her spot on the map. “…I suppose the sooner I get going, the sooner I’ll be back.”

As her foot almost crossed the threshold of the door, she heard behind her, “Not all of his Majesty’s time need be taken up by your traveling companions, yes?”

Mahariel whirled around, but Leliana’s gaze was as implacable as before, eyes trained on the landscape of the map with a faint smile on her lips.

“…No, I suppose not,” she replied slowly.

“And his queen, she will be out of the city by then, no?” Leliana continued with her work, and there was light amusement in her eyes.

A blush started to make its way onto Mahariel’s cheeks. “You’re implying something.”

“Imply? I imply nothing.” There was a teasing lilt to her accent, but it wasn’t right. It was too bright, like a piece of jewelry that was too fervently polished. “I am making a strong suggestion.”

“And is that a suggestion officially from the Inquisition’s Nightingale?” she couldn’t keep herself from saying, the smile dropping. “Seduce the king?”

Leliana finally looked up at her then, and for a moment there was on her face a look of quiet, hurt surprise. Some faded whisper of a girl who had been infinitely more naïve, and far easier to catch off guard.

“—It is a suggestion from a friend who is tired of watching you two treat your love like backsliding.”

Mahariel wanted to accuse her of changing. Of not being the same. Of living in a keep that wasn’t _hers_ , where conversations went on regardless of whether or not Mahariel was listening and she passed through crowds like a shadow. She wanted to tell Leliana that she was becoming one of those dangerous sorts of people, people like herself who grew numb to the pricking of their heart, and that she was so, so afraid for the girl who had once sung a Dalish lullaby to help her sleep through her tears.

But the words choked her throat and instead she said flatly to her knees, “You watch me, do you?”

“I’ve tried to keep track of where you all went,” Leliana sighed, a thick emotion finally coming into her voice. “Do you know how hard it is? I didn’t even know Morrigan was at court until a few months ago. Zevran teases me, you know. He always finds my agents before they find him and sends them back with messages stuck to their backs. And don’t even get me started on Sten.”

“Arishok,” Mahariel corrected gently.

“I know what you think, when you look at my methods. I know what the world thinks of me, those who even know who I am. It’s what I want them to see, but it’s not—” She scowled, looking down at her gloved hands. “If I am different, it is because I do not flinch from what needs to be done. It is not because I care less. It’s because I care _more._ Because I…because…”

Creators, when had the two of them gotten so old? “I understand.”

Leliana relaxed, walking to her side and putting a hand on her shoulder. “I know we haven’t really had a chance to talk. It’s not as easy as it was when I could join you on the field. I just have to be where I’m needed. I have to be… **what** I’m needed.” When her hand slipped back it fell heavy to her side. “Trevelyan—relies a great deal on my council. He understands the importance of secrets and subtlety, that it is far stronger than any army we could cultivate. The work we do is too important, too—too _magnificent_ to be any less than…”

“You aren’t less than,” Mahariel said quietly.

“I hope you have a safe journey. And I hope when you return we can end this war together. Like old times.”

Mahariel didn’t bother telling her it would never be like old times. She simply gave her a quick hug and then went to go.

“Sahlia?”

She turned again.

Leliana stood still in front of the table, her hands together. “…Thank you for coming to say goodbye.”

The darkness and hurt lessened. Where it came from, she could no longer say.

“—Hope you get his memory back soon. He doesn’t seem like as much fun without.”

Leliana made a noise of disgust and returned to the war table. Mahariel closed the door on her way out.

Perhaps one day her nightingale would sing for her again.

If the Inquisition and its leader didn’t rip the music out of her first.


	11. Party Selection (Intermission)

Skyhold was cold and grey as they prepared to leave for the little village where the Templars had been spotted.

They had made their plans, which at the very least meant not having to kick around in Skyhold twiddling their thumbs and waiting for something go wrong. So Dorian was grateful for that. It was all hands on deck for this one, in a manner of speaking. The inner circle—the only people who could be trusted to keep the matter secret--would be divided into teams, each pursuing their respective lead.

Trevelyan had insisted on following up the matter with Marcus. It was an agreeable prospect, for… _most_ of them. Dragging their amnesiac Inquisitor after the mage that had cast a spell on him to begin with was not the most tactically sound plan.

Dorian would just prefer to not have Trevelyan racing after one of his exes, that’s all.

The lead with the Templars was cold enough already, so they couldn’t delay, but they were also planning to make a first attempt at undoing the memory spell with Helisma’s supplies and the combined expertise of Dorian himself, Solas, and Vivienne. For strength support they would be relying on the Bull and his Chargers.

As for the mage, that would be pursued by Cassandra, Blackwall, Sera, and Varric. Cole would…Well, Dorian wasn’t entirely certain where Cole would be. Even after everything, he was still hard to keep track of. It didn’t seem likely he would be sitting on his hands, at least. Better to trust he would be where he was needed than worry about it on top of everything else.

For a given definition of need.

And trust.

There would be some rotation. Once they were done removing the spell—or trying, anyway—Vivienne would swap out to accompany the Venatori pursuit. Evidently, she took his contributions to commandeering the rebel mages somewhat personally. Similarly, once satisfied with their investigation into the Venatori, Cassandra would be joining up with Trevelyan and the rest to make use of her Seeker abilities against the fallen Templars. And so on.

The idea was to be flexible, to keep from getting too locked into a setup that might not work for them. Maybe they would need more force with the Templars. Maybe they would need less. Leliana knew her agents, Cullen knew his men, and Josephine knew her contacts, but as for their little circle, well…

Their illustrious Inquisitor knew how best to utilize his friends’ talents, and he was nowhere in sight.

…Literally.

Dorian was just finishing packing his mount when he realized that Trevelyan was no longer in the area, his mare restlessly tugging on a strap that affixed her to the gate.

“ _Kaffas._ ”

He stormed out of the courtyard, one part anxious, the other simply frustrated.

Thankfully, this time, it didn’t take very long to track him down.

“So there is only the _one_ entrance to Skyhold? What if the keep were under siege? How would you sneak out?”

He was talking with Josephine in the garden.

It was not terribly unusual, as far as things went—Josephine would get stressed and sometimes Trevelyan would catch her wringing her fingers and invite her to chat. For a while, Dorian had privately thought perhaps he had something of a crush on her. The fanatic eagerness with which he struck back against the House of Repose when they threatened her safety, how he always handed her a compliment whenever they crossed paths. The way he would change his voice whenever speaking to her.

Trevelyan was doing that now, too.

Josephine was flustered by the attention as always, though today there seemed to be a distinct tinge of relief to her flattered laughter. “We don’t sneak out. We stand tall. Even if…that’s not ideal for our non-combatants.” She swallowed, taking a sip from a teacup held in her perfectly manicured fingers. “—I’ve been in discussion with a contractor.”

He nodded, carefully hiding the brief flash of displeasure on his face, before changing tactic. “And this Iron Bull—the Chargers. Who pays them?”

“They’re paid out of the Inquisition’s coffers, of course.”

“Right. Right. Of course.” Trevelyan tapped his fingers on the table, body completely still aside from that small movement. “What if we… _stopped_ paying them? Would he—they—go away?”

“Well—” Josephine paused, looking more unsure. “I suppose now that he has severed his ties to the Qun, there isn’t… _really_ anything keeping him here, but…”

“So, if I told you I wanted to have them just—ah—thrown out of Skyhold, would that be feasible?”

In response to Josephine’s stare, Trevelyan attempted a joking grin. It wasn’t particularly successful.

Dorian decided it was a good moment to interrupt, stepping forward and clearing his throat.

Trevelyan gave far more of a start than Josephine’s rapid blinking, showing teeth and clapping his hands together to fidget with the fit of his gloves. The way he was perched on the chair he might have been ready to bolt. “Oh, hello.”

Dorian smiled pleasantly at the two of them as he reached over and yanked hard on Trevelyan’s jacket collar, tugging him out of his seat.

The man just barely managed to keep from toppling over, stumbling for a few steps, shaking himself out, and then adjusting his jacket with a sniff. “—I thought maybe we could chat a minute before I left. Improve my impression from yesterday.”

“I can see.” His calm amusement seemed to shame Trevelyan, expression growing more sheepish. “The others are waiting. Best not to keep them, yes? We’re all doing this for you, after all.”

“For me.” Trevelyan coughed into his fist, glanced back at Josephine, and took precisely two steps away. His brows furrowed, and he stared down at his boots.

Dorian grabbed his wrist. “Goodbye, Josephine dear. Don’t make any appointments while we’re away.”

“You will keep me apprised of all developments, I hope,” she returned, straightening in her seat and giving a little wave. “…And sending ravens to Leliana alone does not count.”

He held up a hand, not turning around. “Ta ta.”

Thankfully, Trevelyan followed him back to the courtyard obediently enough, mostly likely because leaving Skyhold and its many people was amenable to him. They arrived just as the second party was heading out, and Dorian saw Sera pushing Varric on to leave faster as soon as Trevelyan came into view.

Typically, if they were ever separated by their mission roster, Sera would stick around long enough to say something crass before the group left. Sometimes it was Trevelyan who would flag her down for goodbyes, or…other things. Dorian had a very vivid recollection of Trevelyan hitting his shin while packing for a mission, then hunting for her all across Skyhold only to ask that she kick his other one so he’d be “even”. She’d hit the wrong leg on purpose and he’d laughed on and off for an entire hour into the trip.

He wouldn’t claim to understand the nuance of that particular relationship or its rituals, but it did sadden him to see it dismissed by her so readily.

Worse in that Trevelyan’s eyes expressed no emotion, not even real recognition as he watched them go, before returning to his horse and murmuring apologies as he released it from the strap. She whinnied and sneezed into his face.

The Iron Bull nudged Dorian’s arm as Trevelyan let out a string of muttered curses. “What’s up?”

“Oh, he’s just trying to get you exiled from Skyhold,” Dorian sighed. “Don’t worry, I took care of it.”

Bull whistled, but said nothing further.

Vivienne strode over to where Trevelyan was examining the contents of his pack like a child finding a bag of toys and his father’s shaving razors. Somehow her heels clicked even on the dry ground, and when she got close enough, he snapped straight to attention.

She opened her mouth, but whatever the iron lady had to announce was dashed when she caught sight of his fingers. “You still have the ring I gave you,” she said, naked surprise in her voice.

Trevelyan took a step back before looking blankly down at his hand. “You gave this to me?”

“Yes, I did. A gesture between—” She caught herself just in time. “A gesture.”

He looked over it as though with some newfound appreciation. “…You had it fitted so I could wear it over my glove.”

“Well, I certainly couldn’t let you wear it _under_ the glove. Then no one would see it.” She took his hand in hers, lightly rotating the ring on his finger until its inlaid jewel was pointing up. “Take good care of it, my darling. You have displayed a great deal of discipline and consideration that I greatly admire and respect. …See to it that you don’t give me cause to change my opinion.”

For a moment, Trevelyan almost looked afraid. “Oh. Okay.”

He didn’t take his hand back until it was released, and the moment she started crossing back to her stallion he scrambled up onto his horse the way a cat bounds up a tree.

Solas said nothing to any of them, expression inscrutable as they all started to head for the gate.

Oh yes. This mission was going to be one of the fun ones. Dorian could feel it in his bones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As an apology for the chapter being so short, for anyone wondering what characters look like--[[here](https://64.media.tumblr.com/b4e9ccf4139c335ce9fe63daf5ee6d27/tumblr_pmoupe9Orv1vxyu1go1_500.png)] is some art I did once of my warden and Inquisitor (note though that it's old and drawn before the vast bulk of my writing so it's not 100% what I headcanon anymore), and [[here](https://64.media.tumblr.com/54a9b5c4b8c1cc5f46e7af8102267f1e/8c8c13d681527d69-59/s500x750/332bbb5177f4e72155905504d5ca8a4a5d4ea503.gifv)] is one gif out of several that I made for my Inquisitor a little more recently.


	12. Missing Friends

She had no idea why she was the only one freaking out about it.

What if Corphy-shits showed up in Skyhold while he still didn’t remember which way was up and how to hold rifts closed? What if he got in one of his moods and decided the staff in Skyhold were easy pickings? What if some noble ponces came in expecting introductions and special favors and blah blah blah and didn’t like how Lex kept staring at them like he didn’t know what was what?

Well, that one had sort of happened already…

Lex had looked at her when their groups split. She’d glanced back, just once, just because she had to. As they’d left the gate he’d given her a curious stare, the cold smile of a stranger.

They were supposed to be friends. That made him safe, made it so they could talk like people instead of a small person and a big person. She didn’t fit with the other elves and he didn’t fit with his family, and that made it so that in a weird way, they fit with each other. Even if it was a weird fit. Like two puzzle pieces completely different shapes and colors but the edges lined up. He would say things and she got it, just like she’d say things and he’d _get it._

But—maybe it wouldn’t be so horrible if it was just at her. It would hurt, but it would make some kind of sense, because sometimes—sometimes people changed their minds. And they decided they didn’t like her after all. So there was some kind of order in that.

But he had no right looking at _everyone_ else like that. Like they weren’t people.

Especially not Dorian.

Mages. She really hadn’t wanted to be on this side of the mission. But _he_ was going after the Templar, and she hadn’t wanted to be anywhere near him until his head was fixed, so she’d just stuck to Thom and Varric at the courtyard. They were heading to meet up with Scout Harding in the Storm Coast, which wasn’t as rainy today but by the look of it would be soon.

“You stick out your lip any farther and I’ll be able to shelve my books on it, Buttercup,” she heard to her right, Varric nudging her side as they walked through the grass together.

A flash of irritation made her look up. “What? No you couldn’t. My lips aren’t that big.”

“Just an expression. –We’re almost to camp, if you want to resume your brooding there,” he said, patting her on the back.

Sera blew him a raspberry and moved so she was behind Thom. “It’s all shit, innit.”

“It’s something of a mess, yeah. But no moreso than usual, I’d say.” Thom kept his eyes ahead, but his stride slowed just a touch so she could keep up with him easier.

“That’s easy for you. He already hated you. It’s not different.”

When Thom finally did glance her way, his eyes were tired. “No, I don’t think he hates me this time around. He was…excited. Which honestly makes me sick to my stomach.”

“Well, there’s that, then.”

“Silence, the both of you,” Cass said sternly from the front, eyes severe as ever. She’d been even less fun than usual. She’d tried using a magic cleansing on Lex before they left, and it hadn’t done anything to help at all. Then she’d blathered half the way about how that meant there was blood magic involved, ‘cause something to do with the Fade and it not being there and blah blah, which wasn’t fun to hear. “We are almost to the camp, and we cannot be heard talking about this.”

Sera blew her a raspberry too, but it was drowned out by the clanking of her armor.

How they said hi to the Inquisition’s men and women in the area tended to vary depending on who it was. Cullen’s soldiers usually had a camp already there, with some food on the fire and tents around to keep people warm. They had the tall ones standing guard with their big shields up, and they saw when Sera or one of the others waved and let them through. With Josie, the camp would be set up more like a trading post—a lot of it was locals, usually the rich knobs or maybe merchants, and it would be busy like nothing else. Often they’d know it was Inquisition by the flags, but sometimes there’d be favors to trade, which wasn’t hard, but it was annoying.

This time it was Leliana’s people, though, and that was a bit different. You never saw their camps. They saw you first, and there was no saying hi until they were right on top of each other.

Sera wasn’t shocked by Scout Harding’s sudden arrival, but she was a little bit peeved because it seemed rude and dickish, to her. They obviously weren’t Venatori, so why couldn’t they just be out in the open for them like normal?

And, of course, she went to _Cassandra_ , rather than the rest of them. Not that it mattered. None of the people here were _really_ in charge. They were all like chickens, running around without a head. Because the head had been chopped off. Or—changed. Or whatever. Though to be fair, Sera was only half listening.

“Basically, we know he’s here, but we can never seem to catch him. He leaves signs when he goes out, but where he goes home to? No clue.”

Lace. Her name was weird. Lace, and then Harding. But she wasn’t really either, was she? Too many arrows and secrets and mud to be lace. Too many rosy smiles to be harding. It was all good—she was a proper normal, and all that, and a good agent. Just the name. Sera had suggested she get a different one, and she’d looked at her funny.

Most people did. It was sort of like a badge of pride now.

Cass sheathed her sword with a clink of metal, scowling over the horizon before them. “There are many places to hide among the bluffs. And the natural cave formations extend far inland. I am thinking that perhaps we should split up, for expediency.”

Thom glanced around them with an uneasy look, resting his hand on the beat-up old hatchet he’d taken over the gryphon sword Lex had commissioned him. “You sure that’s wise? Supposing there are still darkspawn roaming the area?”

Cassandra turned and snapped, hard as flint, “Then it is unfortunate we do not have a real Grey Warden here to sense them.”

Thom pulled back like a kicked puppy.

“Oh, no darkspawn,” Harding jumped in, perky and smiling. Probably a front. Cut through the awkwardness. Sera remembered that she was the only scout who didn’t give Thom those dirty looks when it all went down, just a little hurt stare, and felt a bit better for it. “We’ve got it pretty well scoped out for that. The masonry we’ve put over those Deep Roads entrances have held firm.”

Cass gave her one of her steely glares, like she was trying to see the Truth inside her very soul, before nodding. “I see. –Then, as I surmised. Splitting up is our best strategy. We have too much ground to cover otherwise.”

“Seeker, I don’t know if—” Varric put up his hands when she started to glare at him. “You’re the boss. –Just note that not all of us can set fire to lyrium with a thought, so we might— _might_ —be at a disadvantage when we catch this guy.”

“What he said,” Sera added.

Cass put a gauntleted hand to her forehead and huffed. “I am not suggesting we go and take this mage out on our own. This is merely—searching. We are helping the scouts here locate him, nothing more. Once we have done so, we will regroup with the others and be able to strike with a full force.”

Still kicked from her earlier jab, Thom stepped forward a bit more hesitantly than usual. “It’s just that, tactically it’s not—”

At that point Cassandra lost it, raising her voice and bellowing at all of them at once, “Then what do _you_ suggest!?”

In the following silence, no one offered anything.

So, splitting up it was.

Harding gave them a more detailed rundown of the mission before they all took their own pieces of the coast. Credit to Cass, she picked the Red Lyrium caves for her beat, where they had found and killed all those Templars. The rest of the coast was likely to be just animals or bandits, but those caves might have still had a few of those crystal creatures running around.

“You’re gonna be careful, right?” Sera prodded as Cassandra finished sharpening her sword.

“ _Yes,_ Sera, I will be fine.” She barely looked up, her tone exasperated. “Honestly. Out of all of you I am the one who falls in battle the _least_.”

“Don’t get me wrong. You’re hard alright.” Sera hadn’t needed to do much preparation. Refill her bee jar, stock back up on arrows, do some stretches—she was good to go. “Just don’t want you to get your leg cut off or nothing because you don’t have one of us bailing you out. You get swarmed too. Only so long that armor will hold out, yeah?”

“I will be careful.”

Thom had chosen the tunnels further from the coast, one of the areas they had cleared of darkspawn much earlier. He was sharpening his axe and testing the weight of his shield when she popped up. “You’re not a real Grey Warden.”

He grunted.

“So if you see any darkspawn, you don’t have any Grey Warden magicky powers or shite.”

He patted her on the head and continued his work. She grumbled to herself, pulling away to join up with Varric, who had picked the region that still had one of those Tranquil skulls on a pike because it wigged her out too much to do. It was close enough to hers, and they could do a fair amount of the walking together.

She was pretty sure that they had someone else with them, but she was also pretty sure she didn’t want to think about that person, so she didn’t.

As they left, Harding stepped out from where she’d been scanning the curling maps.

“I…have to say, I’m a little surprised the Inquisitor didn’t come with you,” she said, Varric stopping to look her way. “I was hoping I could show him these bones I found washed up on the beach. Three eyeholes. It’s…right up his alley. I remember he really liked it here last time.”

“Oh, you know him. Always trying to do two things at once. He’s out on another mission halfway across Orlais. With Dorian, of course.” He passed her a wink, and she blushed.

Lex used to flirt with Harding a bit for a lark. Sera hoped she wasn’t disappointed when she found out about Dorian. Their Inquisi-butt never meant it when he dressed up and honeyed his words, but some people didn’t know that and he always seemed to assume they did.

Bet Harding was picturing it now, though. Him and Dorian. Sera wasn’t totally clear herself on how they did it, not that she ever wanted to know in a million years. Harding backed off before she could ask some questions about where Lex was and what he was doing that they couldn’t answer without loads of stammering and lies.

“Who wants to bet this is gonna go tits up?” Sera said as she walked out of the camp with Varric. “Anyone? No? Just me?”

“Just remember to follow the rules, Buttercup. You’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, yeah. No leaping on the prig without backup. –It’s not right, you know. We take on baddies together, not in pieces.”

“True. But we also don’t have Smiley’s talent for finding things by standing still and staring at the sky hard enough. So Cassandra might have a point about covering more ground.”

“’Cassandra might have a point’. Words I never thought _you’d_ say.”

He did one of his scratchy laughs. “A sign of the extraordinary times we’re in.”

Of course, just a few minutes out from the point where she was too far away to just call for help, she got attacked by wolves.

“You mangy nug-eating pissbags!” she shouted, though without a whole lot of heat. Wolves were fine. She got wolves. Just dogs, especially when they were hungry. She didn’t like them, but she understood them. Knew how they moved, how they attacked, how to sometimes make nice with them (though she didn’t, this time).

Her arrows hit their targets like she knew they would and she thought about how Lex was always running out because he never saw where they landed when he fired, not unless he was being slow and careful. And he was almost never slow and careful. That was one of the things she liked best about him.

Mage. Stupid Venatori. Casting spells on her friend. Every time something went wrong with that one, magic was involved. She was sensing a pattern, and it was not one she liked. _Magic._ She didn’t _get_ magic. Or maybe she did, and it just didn’t fit.

Her and the Inquisitor, they got on. They didn’t fight about much. But magic was one of those things. She remembered about a month back he’d dragged them into some stinking elfy ruin, and inside they found fires that started themselves, rotted slimy corpses that tried to punch them in the arse, and—oh yes—pieces of a big demon that were still alive even as they sat on little pedestals, cut up and wet, big purple heart still pumping.

She still got nightmares, and every time she woke up from one, she blamed him. Because how could he be _excited_ about that? How could he think it was anything but freaky rubbish?

Sure, he didn’t believe in the Chantry, but—that was okay because the Maker wasn’t supposed to be _really_ real anyway. He was in the sky, out of sight, sitting on his throne, or maybe not because he left. It didn’t matter.

She remembered how they’d spoken when they got back to Skyhold, how just talking had turned into snippy remarks and then glowering at opposite sides of the room. And he’d looked at her, his eyes narrowing and his voice going quiet with anger, the kind that nobles got when you scuffed their pride.

_"You’re starting to sound awful **small** right now, Sera.”_

_"Maybe you’re just being too **big** ,”_ she’d bit back.

And for a few hours she was still mad and she thought that was it then and he was just a complete arsehole, but the next time she came down to the tavern from her room he’d been down at the bar level with two beers and a worried look on his face.

Stupid. She knew he didn’t drink. He just pretended so she could drink with him. To make it a little easier to say he was sorry. Even if she hadn’t yet.

Because to him, she mattered.

Her eyes were wet. She snarled, wiping them with her sleeve.

It wasn’t like she was trying to hurt him with it. That’s what she told him, too. The words would be in her head and then they’d come out, and then people would get mad or hurt. It had taken her a long time to connect the two things when she was younger. Sometimes she still couldn’t. But just because she thought he was barmy about a few things didn’t mean he wasn’t alright.

And anyway. Dorian was fun to knock back a few with, and he was _full_ of magic—kept pissing it out like the cheap ale in the tavern, especially when he was drunk. So maybe it wasn’t all bad.

But the creepy shit. The creepy shit was bad, and Lex needed to stop ooh-ing and aah-ing over it.

That was probably why he was messed up now. Stuck his nose in the wrong magic cave or book or whatever.

The caves along the storm coast were big and deep and dark, and she didn’t care for playing in them. She couldn’t imagine some rich, spoiled Tevinter staying in them either. At least, not ones this obvious, with all manner of baddies crawling around in them in addition to Inquisition scouts looking inside. Of course, the only Tevinter she really knew was Dorian, who wasn’t really like most other Tevinters—but in the “ew get the cobwebs off my robes” area, she could probably be safe in assuming they had that in common.

So, no big drippy caves. Where, then?

Harding had pointed to signs of his work elsewhere along the coast. In the little valleys where sometimes there’d be sheep. Lex was good at finding the weird bits in the land, like those gateways that needed the star things filled out to open. If he were here, it would be a cinch, but then if he were here they wouldn’t need to find the mage in the first place so that was a waste to think about. Still, it did get to her—she’d ask him how he was so good at finding tiny rubbish in big places and he’d said it wasn’t because he was good at seeing things—although he was—but because he knew something when he saw it.

“ _A lot of people see the same things I do, but they don’t know what it means, or they don’t pay attention to it. A few scorch marks on a rock don’t matter to them. Some painted lines on the sand. An area where even the birds don’t get too close. But I notice everything, every change, every…abnormality. –It’s fun. It’s like a puzzle. I’m very good at those.”_

_“You’re real good at bragging, too,” she’d said, and slugged him one._

Maybe it was something else she should be freaking out over, that she was starting to recognize what some of the magic shite looked like. Not what it did—but that there was something going on, when hillsides had sigils scrawled into the dirt and burned into the grass.

As she was looking it over, arrows in hand, a noise came at her, but only if she tilted her ears right.

It was…someone talking?

_Through_ the hill?

Frowning, she leaned in closer, trying to get a read on what she was hearing.

And when she did, her whole body went stiff.

She knew that voice. Could she even call it a voice? From far away it might have felt like just words and a pretentious accent, but if you got closer you could hear how wrong it was. It crackled in the air, doubling into a song so faint you almost didn’t notice it, until suddenly it was all you could feel. Familiar as your own heartbeat.

The other man—his voice sounded normal. Or at least, more normal than a darkspawn. “My lord, I only wish to speak to you directly because I do not think your chosen Vessel has properly evaluated how beneficial this is for our efforts.” He crammed so many Big Words into his mouth that _she_ was gagging just listening to it.

“Do not forget the chain of command. Calpernia leads my forces for a reason.”

“With all due respect, Your Worship, my wish is to demonstrate to you that there are others better suited to the position.” He added, with a really grating tone of kissup, “Something I am sure you will see immediately, in your infinite wisdom.”

The voice with the singing behind it grew sharp. “Careful. Your ambition may be laudable but I will not tolerate disrespect.”

“I mean no disrespect, my lord. I only wish for the chance to prove myself.” Every time the man spoke up, Sera was pulled from the terror of hearing Corphyfuss’ voice by her irritation at this obnoxious git. “With a mere month’s preparation time I have done more than anyone else in my position. I have tapped magical potential that others would not even dream of.”

From the sound of it, Corphy-face wasn’t impressed. “And yet, the entire unit you borrowed was slaughtered as easily as any other.”

“A minor setback, Your Worship. Yes, I did lose my forces, but the goal I was setting out to achieve—”

“—Has not hindered Trevelyan in any way you have been able to demonstrate. He still slipped from your clutches, now didn’t he? I am still receiving reports of him and his…circle slaughtering whatever of our forces they encounter.”

“I would have had time to bind his mind properly if I had not been interrupted.”

“But you were. And so you did not.”

“I am not the only one who has fallen short where the Inquisitor is concerned!” Something struck stone—maybe the end of a staff? “And I am one of the few with the opportunity yet to turn this around!”

“And you will do so. With what you have already been given.”

“Your Worship--!”

“Calm yourself, Gideon. I promise to be most impressed if you should succeed.” Coryphemus’ voice took on an even deeper level of growl as the connection cut out. “And most amused if you fail.”

The silence that came after, not just from the other Venatori but a total stop of the singing as well, that was what told her that whatever he’d been using to talk to Corfifuss had cut out. Without meaning to, Sera breathed a sigh of relief, unclenching her jaw.

So. The Venatori they were after was just like any other noble. Trying to grab power by pulling others down around him. Good to know.

Of course she needed to get her backup now, but what was this exactly? That conversation had been clear—too clear to be coming from behind stone. But this outcropping looked completely solid. Where was the door? She couldn’t just go get them only to come back and find nothing. Plus, what if he ran off?

Her fingers slipped along the dewy rock looking for a trapdoor or something. Some kind of seam to stick an arrow in. It didn’t have to be big—she’d done Jenny drops with little hidden panels like that, and she knew all that she had to do was feel just the slightest difference in elevation between one part and the next. Something too steady to be natural, something that a person would make.

She leaned in just to see—

\--And found herself falling through the cliff as though it weren’t even there, landing on her back looking up into a patchwork face made of faces.

A pair of browned gold eyes looked at her through the slits in the—mask?—shadowed under a sweeping black robe with dragon designs stitched in with gold accents.

“Oh, no. This won’t do.” A cold voice came out of what might have been the mouth as she scrambled to get up, a clack on the ground as he readjusted his staff. Mage. “I can’t have pea-brain elves like yourself spoiling my work.”

The faces on his face were made of actual skin. Real skin. Faces. Stitched together.

“You’re not right!” she cried, reaching for her arrows.

The mage swore, stepping to the side as she fired, his cloak tearing from the shot. He slammed his staff into the ground, a cloud of dust blowing up into the air. She choked, her eyes watering. But she didn’t need to see to get her arrows going. She didn’t even _really_ need to see to let them fly in his direction.

As a blast of foul-tasting magic hit her she heard him cry out in pain, and her last thought before the spell took hold was fierce victory.

When she woke, it was with nothing.

She was supposed to be in Denerim, but this wasn’t Denerim, and there was a great big wad of nothing between Denerim and…this place.

A cave?

Why would she be in a cave in the arse end of nowhere? There was a small torch sitting all crooked in some sconce further in, and Sera carefully took it out to look around. “Balls. Piss.” There was no visible entrance, but she could feel wind faint on her ears, and that meant there had to be something close by. She stood for a moment, trying to piece out its direction.

A few steps over, a hand outstretched—no more wall.

Every single part of her was screaming, but there was nothing to do for that. She stepped through into the light, careful, her breath coming in big gasps now. This was wrong. It didn’t fit. And somewhere in the back of her mind, as she struggled to recognize something, anything—somewhere, she was thinking about things that didn’t make sense.

_Frick. He left. Where did he go?_

Who?

She remembered no one and nothing, her knuckles white as she dug her chipped nails into her palm, but she also knew that if she continued down along the flattened grass before her, eventually she would meet a camp with a strange insignia on the banners they flew.

_The hairy eye of Andraste._

That scared the ever-loving frig out of her, so she started to run in the opposite direction, down to the sand and the drenching slap of waves. The sea.

Sera didn’t like the sea. She held back before she hit the sand, falling to sit on an old, petrified log that overlooked the froth of foam and spray that had probably killed tons of people. She put her head in her hands, yelling.

Under the yelling, she could hear someone speak, but their voice was far away under all the noise. “It’s not that way. You have to go under, not through.”

_Come on! Piss-arse magic! Red Jenny! Beeeees!_

When did she get bees?

Red Jenny. She had just met a Red Jenny. A new family. But—no, that wasn’t right…

There was something very important that she needed to do, which was bonkers because she was the least important person in the world. She was a little nobody urchin on the street, and no one cared what happened to her, no one cared if they hurt her. Her world was hungry and dirty, and why was she wearing armor now?

She was a little thief that pulled pranks.

_Red Jenny, snarky, pranks, water bucket over Josie’s door—_

Josie, Josephine…

“Skyhold, cold, smell of grass when you keep the window open, panes of colored glass, Andraste, sitting across Thom with mugs of ale, for once Friends in places so high you worry they’ll fall—”

_Look at you._ _Sera of the Inquisition, defender of the Little People._

_\--_ That’s what he called her, the git. He’d been teasing but she knew he meant it too. Knew that he would look back for her, would help people for _her,_ and sometimes when he got that knot in his brow from the weights he didn’t even know he carried, from everything complicated and abstract that would never be real and never make sense, she would be there for a laugh and make his world solid again.

Sera. She was Sera, she was a Red Jenny, she was a friend of Trevelyan, who let her call him Lex because she didn’t make the name go high at the end. She would go drinking with Thom in the tavern and laugh at bad poetry, drop figs in Dorian’s underwear drawer for funsies, and try to find the _one_ prank that would get at Vivsie to knock her from her tall heels.

Sera. _She was Sera_.

Sera took in a huge gasp of breath as the world kind of _popped_ and all of her memories came rushing back at once.

“I knew you could!”

She looked over and there was Creepy.

“Frigging— _arse-biscuit!_ ” She very nearly fell sprawled out on the sand.

“The spell isn’t made for you,” the demon said. “He made it for the Inquisitor, and you’re not quite the right shape. Enough to obscure but not to blanket.”

“ _Warn someone when you’re gonna do something like that, you prig!”_ She scrambled up and whapped his hat, sand everywhere. “That’s not normal!”

He didn’t so much as flinch. “I followed. Careful, caring, cautious. –I know you don’t like seeing me, so I tried not to be seen. It was tricky. I’m sorry I didn’t come in quick enough to stop the magic. But you pulled it off you! That was good.”

He was happy, which she probably should have been happy about herself, but she was having a hard time even paying attention to what he was saying. Nothing in Creepy matched up. He was a collection of pieces that weren’t a whole, twitches in the wrong place and lip motions that only sort of resembled the words that were coming out of his mouth. He’d smile with dead eyes, a glassy stare that stayed in place as the rest of him moved.

The others were wary but they didn’t get it, couldn’t see why she continued to yell and flinch back now that they knew he was one of the good ones.

Well. Lex did.

But the things that made her scared and jumpy were the parts of the demon he said he loved, so he wasn’t any help. The closest he’d come to giving her any real advice was comparing him to a spider. “He might freak you out but he just wants to help, and he’s not going to hurt you. You’ll be better off trying to co-exist with him than trying to get him to go away”. And then as he’d left she’d tossed a harmless little jumping spider from one of her jars on his shoulder and he’d slammed that shoulder into a wall to smush it.

…Poor spider.

So. Bad advice, then.

But, Cole pulled away on his own, and she breathed a little easier.

“I will go find them,” he said quietly. “I will tell them the words and writings he used to make the spell on you.”

“Yeah—” She waved her hands at him, and he made no response whatsoever. “You go do that. Go do that _far, far away.”_

He nodded, pausing to hand over her quiver to her before he left. Sera stuck her tongue out at him as she grabbed the strap. Then he was gone.

The creepy crawly feeling ran back up her spine as she made her way back to camp.

“ _Ugh.”_

Magic. He’d tossed that spell on Lex.

Yeah.

She could see why he’d be…like he was.

Best find the sicko Tevinter quick, then.


	13. Affection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note: Author doesn’t know how battle scenes work, film at 11.

Trevelyan seemed to take well to the “clangers” that they’d been given as rations, though he chewed slowly and only on one side of his mouth. He sat at the smoldering fire as the first light of dawn came streaming over the horizon and watched as Vivienne and Solas discussed their next moves with a mute absorption, gloves greased slightly by his food as he ate.

Watching him made Dorian homesick. He didn’t know how that possibly made sense, but it was what he felt.

It was galling, how much of his time in the Inquisition was resource collection. It seemed to dwarf all of the major battles, all of the exciting exploration. It checked out though, of course. One couldn’t get anything done in saving the world without mindless drudgery first. The parties were long behind them. At least it gave Dorian time to brush up on the necromancy tome he had found in Skyhold’s lower library.

In this particular case, they were prepping for the spell to reverse whatever it was that had been done to Trevelyan, so Dorian supposed he could tolerate it this time. Helisma’s contributions had done the lion’s share of the work, but there were still some odds and ends required to complete the ritual properly. –All items that, were they in _Tevinter_ , could have been easily and cheaply procured at the nearest market square. Given that useful magical endeavors were illegal in Southern Thedas at large, however, they had to rummage around for them in the dirt like common peasants.

But, if all went well, this particular nightmare would be over in a mere matter of days.

He knew better than to believe that, of course.

“You eat far more enthusiastically than anyone partaking of Fereldan fare should,” Dorian remarked as he slammed his book closed, his own clanger only half eaten and discarded to the ground next to him. To him, it had barely any flavor. He had no idea how the others could stand it. It was like consuming bland mush.

Trevelyan didn’t look at him. “I was hungry,” he countered, tentatively licking at what remained on his gloves. “The best food is food you eat when you’re hungry. It makes it satisfying. Think of the inverse—you can’t enjoy delicious food when you’re full.”

“Spoken like a man who has never eaten a quality meal in his life.”

At least now he was beginning to see something he recognized in Trevelyan, when those bright green eyes looked his way. Light amusement and a touch of wariness, the kind that stemmed from not knowing if you were going to have to punch someone for an insult or not. Much of their initial relationship had come about this way—eventually he must have decided he liked Dorian’s arrogance.

Hopefully that would repeat.

“I’m not Fereldan,” he said with a sniff, folding one leg over the other, almost a mirror of Dorian’s sitting stance. “—And before you say anything I’m not from Starkhaven either, we don’t have those blasted fish egg pies.”

“Yes, I’m quite aware you’re from the land of moldy cheese wheels and pickles. I don’t think you have much room to judge, Amatus.” Amusement began to outweigh the wariness on the other man’s face, which Dorian considered a victory. He leaned forward, beginning to grow eager, though for what he couldn’t say. “One day I will take you to Minrathous and introduce you to real food. Have you ever tasted a pomegranate? They’re divine, and they look like little jewels.”

“Do they?”

“Oh yes. Even common street food carries an array of flavors, intermingling in your mouth like lovers in a dance. You’ve never lived until you’ve tasted the chicken they serve up outside the dome theater in the center of the pleasure district.”

Trevelyan pressed two of his fingers to his neck, briefly. “Well, I appear to have a pulse regardless.”

“Uncultured swine.”

“I’ve always been curious about Tevinter,” he admitted, fingering the decorative buttons on his boots. “One of the things I always got in trouble for. In my household you were supposed to condemn and move on. …What are the Templars like, over there?”

Dorian blinked at the change of topic. Out of all the many questions that Trevelyan had given him before on the imperium, that had never been one of them. In fact they had done very little discussion of the Templar Order at all. It was clear that he despised them by the occasional remark he gave, his decision at Therinfal, and so on, but whenever the subject came up he seemed aggressively disinterested at best.

“In the start, I imagine they were quite similar to how they function here,” Dorian began, making another brave attempt at finishing his food before tossing it into the fire pit and setting it alight. “They policed mages, guarded circles, and generally made a nuisance of themselves for anyone a little too eager to spill blood for their spells.”

“That’s not _exactly_ how they function here,” Trevelyan muttered.

Dorian ignored him. “Things changed by degrees, you see. Mages started to police themselves—and why wouldn’t they? Many of the things Templars are capable of, a properly trained mage is as well. Reasonable enough. But they’ve always had political power, in Tevinter. So, the Templar functions get rearranged. Now they are more…investigators and soldiers, and in their role they still did a good job. They still weeded out corruption when it makes itself known. Still kept the worst of us from tainting the best of us.”

He paused, simply for dramatic effect.

“Then, they got their balls cut off.”

He heard Trevelyan choke with laughter and then slap a hand over his mouth, shoulders shaking.

Grinning, he rotated the conversation once more. “I recall you thought you were a Templar when we picked you up in that forest.”

“No.” Trevelyan shook his head, still laughing but his eyes hardening just a tad. “I’ve already had this talk with Cassandra. Parents devout, promised at birth, blah blah blah.”

“Oh no. _We’ve_ had that talk as well, I’m quite aware of your history.” Trevelyan’s head tilted. “I only meant that…Well, you were much farther removed from the Order before, that’s all. I’m curious to how your perspective differs now. Do you take offense?”

Trevelyan laughed dryly from the back of his throat. “Believe me when I say that I would like to see all of the Templars I trained with have their balls cut off. Except—Well, anyway.”

Dorian was tempted to probe further, but it was at that moment that Krem started making loud calls for the Chargers to mobilize.

They both glanced up, standing.

“Time to go on our little scavenger hunt, it looks like.”

Trevelyan focused on brushing lingering food crumbs off his trousers. “Good. I’m good at—I’m good at finding things.”

They set off at the same time—and almost ran into each other. He looked at Dorian’s face and suddenly snickered.

“—Mustache,” he said in explanation to the quirked brow he got in response.

“What?”

“Your—your—your mustache.” He tapped along his lip, before putting his hands behind his back in a nakedly shy gesture. “It’s very distracting. It—it makes me want to—to—”

Something wicked seized Dorian then. “…Kiss me?” he finished.

“…Yes.”

“You’re free to do so, you know,” he said with a smirk.

But Trevelyan’s cheeks flushed slightly, and he turned away. “No, I…I don’t think I am.”

_“Well now. It’s official.”_

_Dorian’s remark had broken a silence that was nearly an hour long, punctuated only by the occasional flurry of snow as they crunched through Fereldan’s bitter winter countryside. As such, everyone turned to look at him._

_He rather liked it, of course._

_“We have spent so much time in this miserable, muck filled, frostbitten hellhole where civilization comes to **die** , I think you are entitled to a spa day once we’re back in Orlais.”_

_“A spa day?” Trevelyan laughed at the very notion of comfort and luxury, godless heathen that he was._

_If Vivienne were here, she would have backed him up. Alas, he was with Team No Class on this mission. Well, save for Varric. But there was no accounting for that dwarf’s taste. “Yes. Something to help you relax. Maker knows you need it. You’re starting to get a wild look in your eye.”_

_“That’s just my eyes. And besides, I don’t think I’d know what to do with myself at a spa,” Trevelyan mused, idly ripping out a weed by the roots. “I don’t have a very quiet mind.”_

_Dorian huffed, and was angered to see his breath linger in the air in a cloud of steam. That kind of thing never happened back home. “True. All the relaxation techniques would be wasted on you. …With how many dead bodies you leave in your wake I'd also expect you to kill all the staff. --Who are secretly Venatori and or Red Templars, mind you."_

_“Or just very bad at their jobs.”_

_“You know, an unsatisfactory massage is not **usually** grounds to kill someone.”_

_Trevelyan looked uncertain. “Vivienne tells me it is. …Or she said something to that effect.”_

_Dorian chuckled, briefly inspecting his nails. “In Minrathous, being able to commit at least one murder to vent stress is a service that the highest-rated bathhouses offer.”_

_“Really?”_

_“No, and you are a gullible fool.” Trevelyan nudged him, clearly forcing himself not to laugh. “But the point still stands. Don’t go killing the spa staff.”_

_"I’d get terribly bored.” And then he went on to say something a tad strange. "I do like you better than killing things, however. If you say not to, then I won’t.”_

_Dorian glanced over at him, lifting a brow. "Oh? What if I told you to never kill anyone or anything ever again, even in self-defense?"_

_"Well then I—” Trevelyan made a helpless noise, stopping in place briefly to throw up his arms. “I guess I'd die."_

_"Because you would have to allow someone to kill you, or because you sustain yourself by the routine sacrifice of others?"_

_"Yes." He held his flat expression long enough for the joke to land, before laughing and starting to walk again. "Oh I **suppose** I could go live somewhere where they're not trying to kill me."_

_Dorian blew out a small plume of fire to try and save his increasingly numb fingers, almost muttering to himself. "I **genuinely** like that idea. You have far too many people and things trying to kill you all the time. It think it’s got you desensitized."_

_“Please, I was born desensitized.”_

_Before he could get another word in,_ _he was suddenly staggered by a thick blanket being flung around his head and shoulders, the world growing dark. The thing was large, and had many folds that draped around his person, almost tripping him up entirely as he tried to find his way out from under it. So completely bewildered was he that for a moment he failed to notice that the biting chill of the wind was no longer a problem._

_By the time he managed to get it pulled off of him to see Trevelyan smiling fondly at him, his hair was sticking straight up from the static. “—What in Andraste’s name are you doing?”_

_"You said you were cold.”_

_It took some quick thinking to mask the heat in his cheeks as indignation. “So your solution is to toss this monstrosity onto my shoulders? –What peasant clothing line did you grab this from?”_

_Varric and Blackwall were laughing, further up ahead. Even Solas looked amused._

_“If you don’t like it, I can put it back.”_

_"Don’t you dare,” he hissed, pulling it tighter around himself._

Of course, they generally couldn’t even go for simple _exploration_ without being attacked, so Dorian should not have been surprised that not even halfway through their excursion the bandits started crawling out of the ground.

Literally, in one instance.

They were still in Fereldan, albeit skirting the border with Orlais. Generally, now that the civil war had ended the latter didn’t give them many issues, outside of their enemy’s main forces. But for all its recovery, Fereldan was a land accosted by both Blight and civil war, all of which had happened within the last decade and thus had not totally recovered yet. The area along its border was currently something of a no-man’s-land, and unfortunately the only place they could find what they needed.

By the time there was only one item left on the list, the sun was beginning to drop down to the horizon. And, of course, it was the hardest to find. A type of moonstone that would enhance the counterspell and prevent energy loss through gaps in the ward setup—extremely useful, and also, unlike many of the mineral resources they would find over their adventures, entirely subterranean. How exactly they were supposed to find one under such conditions, none of them could answer.

That wasn’t what was getting to him though, if he could be honest with himself. A little frustration wasn’t all bad—most of the important things he got done were achieved through righteous fury. But the fighting just drew attention to what was really bothering him, like some irksome gnat.

If it were within Dorian to ignore the changes in the man he—was _close to_ , to spare himself of any further rot in his stomach, he would. But it wasn’t. So he noticed.

Generally, Trevelyan was a gleeful fighter. He enjoyed battle, enjoyed victory, mayhem, gore. The effect had worsened over the time Dorian had come to know him, giggles becoming manic laughter and small flourishes becoming excessive leaps and spins. It was infectious, really. His enthusiasm bolstered his companions and frightened their enemies, particularly whenever he would vanish from view. That was a guarantee someone was going to die soon.

Evidently it had not always been so. The joy was gone entirely when they found themselves set upon by the Templars who had been camping in the area (not the ones they were searching for, of course, oh no. Just a fringe group leftover from the war with the mages, ones who frothed at the mouth at seeing any mage unshackled, much less ones that were very well armed). Now he simply fought, quiet and focused. As though he expected to get injured if he didn’t watch his steps.

This particular group likely wouldn’t have posed much challenge to them at all if they were a complete crew, but they had split up for the search and thus it was just Trevelyan, Dorian, and Bull. Not that they were _having trouble_ per se, but he had grown accustomed to fights like this lasting only a minute or two and was annoyed to find them still standing after the initial strike.

One of the Templars, a woman wielding a fairly impressive blade, seemed to realize how outmatched her fellows were when Dorian felled an archer who had been standing beside her.

It appeared she was fleeing the battle.

For just a moment, the others too occupied with the remaining combatants to notice, he considered being merciful and letting her go. Then he thought about the Templar at Emprise du Lion who had smashed the pommel of his sword into Trevelyan’s head and dragged him away.

With a hot snarl, he gave chase.

She didn’t get far. The terrain was uneven and split in places, as though the product of some long ago earthquake that had smashed the land together, and she came upon a steep cliff that was only just high enough to keep her from easily climbing it. By the time she was readjusting her course, Dorian was crashing his staff to the ground, a wave of fire hurtling towards her to roast her in her armor.

Ah, but she was a Templar, and she knew how to dispel magic. She swung her sword, and the damnable thing cut through the spell, glowing blue with lyrium.

Dorian ground his teeth and advanced.

The sun was a dark orange ball in the sky as they sparred, and he couldn’t say how long they were fighting for. In all likelihood, probably only a few minutes. Somehow they had swapped places, with Dorian back against the cliff and the Templar trying to cut him to ribbons against it. Nonetheless he could practically feel her exhaustion even as his reserves remained strong, and knew that this silly thing would be over soon.

She swung the massive sword in her hands with all her might, her blow glancing over Dorian’s head as he ducked down and the large blade smashing hard into the rock behind him. Sucking in a breath, he let energy pool into his hands and then propelled her backward with a single force push.

Then the sheared cliff fell on him.

The world went white, and then red. But only for a moment. His vision cleared enough to see the Templar staring at him, something that might have been an emotion peeking out behind her practically glowing eyes. Then she bared her teeth.

Dorian’s had one of his hands free and the other pinned against him. He reached for his staff, but felt another wham of force that knocked the air out of his lungs as he was Smited of his magic. It was as though someone had shut a door that had for all of his life always been open.

Well. Mostly been open. He had been Smited before, though it was a rarity and never any less unpleasant.

It was clear the Templar was contemplating how easy it would be now to simply cleave his head from his shoulders. She strode toward him, lifting her blade.

_Thwip._

The head of an arrow was suddenly protruding from about her left knee, and she staggered. Another emotion seemed to be entering her face, this time confusion and pain. There was a dark shape advancing quickly on her, a hand that seized her shoulder and spun her around, sword clattering to the ground.

The woman barely had time to scream before Trevelyan had sunken his blade into her heart, his expression wild and giddy.

“Eh heh—heh heh—ha— _HA HA—_ ” She sank to the ground, gushing blood through her armor like a fountain, and Trevelyan stood there, pressing a bloodied palm to his mouth to stifle his laughter. For a moment his whole body shook with it.

In that moment, Dorian could swear he felt his organs start to be displaced.

“—Alexiel.” The other man looked up sharply, almost angrily, the laughter dying. Dorian really didn’t care. “I realize you’re having a moment, but pull me out before this thing crushes me, will you?” He held out his hand.

Trevelyan simply stared at it, his expression going perfectly blank, head cocked slightly to the side.

“You’re hurt,” he observed.

“Quite. Much worse, if mother nature has her way with me.”

“Sounds unpleasant. Though I suppose that would be fair turnabout on her part, in the grand scheme of things,” Trevelyan quipped, stepping forward. Still he made no move to help, instead pacing around the shattered cliff with eyes growing keen. “What a mess. –How exactly did you manage this?”

“It wasn’t my—“ Talking suddenly grew difficult, and Dorian’s voice cut off with a pained grunt. “—We can thank my Templar friend.”

After passing another look towards the fallen enemy, Trevelyan idly slipped his fingers under the lip of the rock as though intending to lift it himself. “Your face looks slightly purple. –You should consider wearing purple. Not all over, but little accents here and there. It would go with the gold. Do you agree?”

The weight was beginning to grow unbearable. One of his legs had gone numb, and his hand was starting to prickle.

Still there was no urgency, nothing more than conversation. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone crushed by a boulder this big. Do you think you’d flatten, like a piece of dough? Or would your insides burst out of you, like a watermelon? Personally, the latter sounds more exciting. I feel like you would glisten, at least. Don’t you?”

The Fade was still too far away for Dorian to pull, only the slightest trickle of magic getting through. Barely enough to keep himself breathing. Trevelyan leaned down to pick up the sword the woman had dropped, testing its weight in his grip and appearing satisfied. Then, abruptly, he moved out of sight, the only indication of his presence the sound of his boots scraping against rock.

And his calm, jovial voice, pushing through the pain.

“The way you’re positioned now, I think it would just be your abdomen that’s destroyed. Your face should be unscathed. Or do you think some parts of you would shoot up through your throat? –That’s a disgusting thought, isn’t it? Silly me. I should know better than to start talking.”

Dorian’s eyes were beginning to go red again. He didn’t know if the damage was as dire as it felt or he was simply undergoing physical panic from the acute feeling of helplessness, but even the analytical part of his mind wasn’t going to save him from either. There was still speaking—Trevelyan was still saying something in the background, behind the beating of his pulse, but it was fuzzy and drowned out. He wondered how the world could possibly be so cruel as to kill him with something this mundane.

And then, quite suddenly, there was no longer any weight pressing down on his body.

He gulped in air, the ache in his chest even worse now that the pressure was gone. Glancing around somewhat wildly, he eventually managed to glean that the rock was brittle enough for Trevelyan to simply shatter it again. Two halves fell on either side of him, one smacking hard on his foot—but that was hardly his biggest concern.

Trevelyan hopped down from the ledge, tossing the enormous sword to the dirt. When he approached, Dorian felt himself give several stumbling steps back, but it wasn’t him that had caught his attention. Trevelyan reached into the rubble, brow furrowing a touch as he dug around. When he retrieved his prize, light came back into his eyes.

“Ah!”

There, in his hand, was the moonstone variant they’d been searching for.

“Solas said this would be _hard_ to find,” he crowed, examining how it caught the light. It was a small thing, about the size of a child’s fist and colored a pale purple. No one would mistake it for a jewel, but there was a distinctive aura of magic about it that shimmered faintly in the air. Dorian could feel it pulsing through the Smite, slowly peeling back the blockage on the Fade. Not like lyrium—it seemed more a collection of ambient magic, rather than giving it off properly.

Then Trevelyan stowed it away in his pack, and the effect was too muffled to sense any longer. The air felt less heady. He turned to go, something of a bounce in his step. “Probably should let the others know we’re not dead.”

“Probably.”

It was only when he looked back, a good twelve paces away, that he saw Dorian wasn’t following.

They stared at each other again, Dorian with his mind only just starting to clear, and Trevelyan with his eyes as cold as a reptile.

Then he smiled.

It was that boyish grin, the one with just a touch of embarrassment that hid the glint in his eye, made his features appear soft and inviting and at once caused Dorian’s heart to thud. He walked back, took hold of Dorian’s wrist, and lightly tugged. Through the glove his hand was warm, and his grip was gentle. “Come now. Do you need me to carry you? –I’m positive I can.” When Dorian didn’t reply, he reached out to brush his thumb over his face. “Your lip is bleeding…It’s quite attractive.”

Without thinking, Dorian licked at his lip, tasted blood and felt a sting of pain. Trevelyan’s eyes widened, his smile looking more pasted on even as it broadened.

Before he could react, Dorian leaned in and pressed a kiss to his cheek, tugging his wrist free.

“Thank you for the assistance,” he murmured.

A small smear of red was left behind on that white skin.

Then he started to make his way back to camp immediately, doing his best not to limp or clutch at his bruised sides.

Trevelyan continued to stand there frozen like a statue for a few more moments before he followed.

_“Close your eyes.”_

_"Why?”_

_“Just close them.”_

_Dorian huffed in mock irritation, but he did as he was told with as much imperiousness as he was able to muster. For a moment nothing happened, though he could hear the rustle of Trevelyan’s pockets and then the sliding of fabric._

_A brush of soft velvet drifted over his cheek. Dorian opened his eyes._

_“You got a new pair of gloves.”_

_“Do you like them?” They were a lovely, rich black with red lining near the wrist—entirely at odds with his jacket, albeit, the fabric matte and darker than the Great Bear hide. The quality of their design was hard to determine without looking at the interior, but it seemed a safe bet that they’d cost a pretty sum at the market. Moreso than Trevelyan normally spent on clothing. “I got them for…us. I thought…you might like something other than cold leather when we’re…alone.”_

_‘Alone’ was his euphemism for ‘climbing each other like the rock walls on the Storm Coast.’_

_“Believe me, Amatus, I do not mind the leather one bit,” Dorian chuckled, taking Trevelyan’s hand and rubbing it between his own. The fabric was quite plush—and most certainly made with the intention of being worn for someone else. There was no other purpose behind them being so soft on the outside, rather than just the lining. “But these have…potential.”_

_There was a thickness in Trevelyan’s throat when he spoke, one that was beginning to grow recognizable. Sometimes all Dorian needed to do to achieve it was speak in a certain register. “I do like potential.”_

_“You spoil me rotten, do you know that?”_

_"I thought you were already spoiled. How much more rotten can you get?”_

_“Judging by your purchase I think you would like me to show you,” Dorian purred, voice dark and liquid._

_Trevelyan chuckled, his cheeks reddening just a touch and his canine poking out to briefly tease his lower lip. For a moment he said nothing, pleasantly flustered. Then he murmured, “…Would you think me a fool if I said I would be just as content to hold your hand with these?”_

_There was suddenly something in Dorian’s throat, then. “The worst kind of fool.”_

“You alright, Dorian?”

Naturally it was Bull who first approached as the two of them shambled into camp. Trevelyan ignored him—rather deliberately, in fact—and went straight for Solas with his find. Dorian stopped to let the qunari speak, resting his hands on his hips. “Fine, thank you. Just got a touch blindsided. I note that _you_ are limping on both legs now.”

The Iron Bull shook his head at Dorian’s deflection. “You look shook up.”

“I’m fine. Give me one of those restorative poultices your healer makes and I’ll be better in a few hours.”

He rolled his eyes, stepping away for a moment to go fetch one from the resupply table.

When he returned with it, Dorian immediately regretted the request.

It smelled. _Terrible._

While he coughed and struggled to adjust to the odor—before deciding he was actually quite alright with having been crushed and tossed the poultice away—Bull continued to watch him, his eyes that vexing bland that meant he was hiding something. Probably his concern, the incorrigible fool.

“Near as I can tell you just had one Templar on your ass. That enough to rattle you now?”

“It is when the Templar drops a damn cliff on you.” There was still some powdered rubble and dirt on his shoulders, and with a haughty grumble Dorian turned to brush some of it off. “Very nearly tore my robes. Quite distressing.”

“…Trevelyan behave himself?”

Dorian felt his stomach begin to burn. The pain melded into the dulling ache that had currently taken over the rest of his body, and it took a little longer to put on a relaxed face. “You sound like you expected him to grievously murder me the moment we were out of sight.”

The Bull didn’t laugh. “The re-educators used to deal with this kind of shit all the time. Making someone remember something different, it can completely change who they are. How they look at other people, and themselves. Making them forget shit entirely? Well, then they might turn into anything. Not always something good.”

Some of that pain twisted into anger. “Yet more reason to be _grateful_ you are no longer with the Qun.”

“I’m just saying—Got worried when you two were alone. He’s not exactly safe right now.”

“Safe?” His brows furrowed. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean you saw how he flipped out before. And I know he’s been shifty as fuck since. So I’m just saying—when a guy doesn’t remember his friends, they aren’t really his friends anymore. And the Boss isn’t all that great around people who aren’t his friends.” Before Dorian could interject, building to a shout, Bull continued, “—I don’t want him to do anything he’d feel shitty about later, alright? I just want you to be careful.”

He recalled what had just happened and felt a swift rush of defensive anger. “Well, thank you for the _advice_ , Bull. Maker knows that a simpleton like me is simply incapable of looking after my own safety otherwise.”

“Hey, Dorian, come on—”

Dorian waved a hand dismissively as he turned with a swirl of his battered robes, speaking through his teeth. “Now, if you’ll _excuse me_ I am going to go to my tent and rest off my encounter with the _wild animal_ that will surely try to kill me the next chance he gets.”

“ _Dorian_ \--”

He didn’t wait. He just left. The only way he knew how: dramatically, and with his robes billowing behind him. Seething, he made his way to the tent that had been set up for himself and Trevelyan and burst through the flap, rage in his eyes.

\--Only to startle Trevelyan as he sat cross-legged in the center, Dorian’s small tome on necromancy in his hands.

“Um—” he began to splutter as Dorian stared at him, rage suddenly forgotten. He shoved his hands behind his back, smile going wide and nervous again. “Hello.”

“…Hello,” he returned slowly.

“You seem—distressed.” Trevelyan fidgeted, scooting back away from him a little in the dirt. “Are you angry with me? Is this…delayed…anger with me? –I wasn’t _really_ going to let it crush you, you know.”

Swallowing, Dorian smoothed himself down and evened out his tone. “It’s nothing, I just—lost my temper with one of the scouts. He spilled tonic on my robes, if you could believe it.”

“You don’t have tonic on your robes, so I don’t believe it.”

“Is that something of mine you have there?”

Trevelyan pulled out the book again, looking over its cover. “No. –I mean yes. I mean I was—I get curious. –Is that not—am I not allowed to read your books? Is that a rule? Because if so it’s one I forgot.”

“It’s not a rule,” Dorian assured, dropping to a kneel as he slowly approached. “But generally it is common courtesy to ask permission first before taking something that belongs to another. Not very gallant this evening, are you?”

“Well, it’s—you seemed busy, so I thought—” Trevelyan pulled himself away again, like something being stalked by a dragonling.

“Do you even understand any of what you’re reading?” Whatever good cheer today had sapped from Dorian did manage to come back, at least in small doses. “Or were you just hoping to find pictures of corpses?”

Trevelyan’s face grew a lovely shade of pink.

“--Come now, give it here—” He began to laugh, Trevelyan just barely managing to keep the book out of his reach as he pounced for it.

They fumbled with each other, Dorian first trying to manage solely his wrists, and then boxing him in somewhat with his legs to keep him from shifting away. Trevelyan kept the book wrapped tightly to his stomach at first, but then when one of his arms was pried up he took it in one hand and held it up high over his head, laughing.

Dorian extended his reach, pressing in, his eyes solely on the book—

Then his weight knocked Trevelyan over, and suddenly he was half straddling him, their faces an inch apart, breath heaving.

For a moment, he’d almost forgotten.

He licked his dry mouth again, feeling a scab now with his tongue, and Trevelyan’s eyes flickered. He didn’t pull back, or push him off, or move closer. He simply stared, body tense and eyes dissecting. He was showing teeth, but it wasn’t a smile or a grimace. Lingering there like he was…what? Trying to be intimidating? Daring him to…?

Frozen as they were, Dorian easily managed to reach his book, plucking it from the other man’s grip. He was trying not to ogle those dark lips, but they were so inviting when they were parted like that. Truthfully, he wasn’t a man obsessed with the physical aspects of a relationship—at least, not _anymore_ —but then there was that saying about wanting what you couldn’t have…

The dry padding of footsteps resounded from outside, and Dorian just barely managed to get off Trevelyan as Solas opened the flap of the tent.

“The supplies are more than adequate,” he announced, appearing oblivious to their state of dishevelment. “We can begin the counterspell in the morning.”

Dorian smoothed his hair back. “Oh, excellent. Here I was worried that we’d be tromping around the wilderness all day tomorrow. Blessed relief.”

“I am also pleased. It was my concern that we would not have enough moonstone, but the amount is more than adequate for our purposes.” He looked between the both of them for a moment before settling on Dorian, inclining his head. “Dorian, if you wish to participate I advise you begin resting now. You will need to be at full mana, and I know you expended a great deal today.”

Flustered, Dorian gave Solas a put-out glare. “If? Don’t be absurd. Of course I’m getting involved. And I am quite in control of my _mana expenditure_ , thank you. A little flare is not going to kill me.”

“I quite agree. If only you were capable of keeping it to a ‘little’ flare,” Solas returned, a faint smirk on his lips that was gone the moment he looked back at Trevelyan. “You will need to steel yourself, mentally. This process will most likely be arduous.”

“Will it kill me?” Trevelyan asked, as though inquiring about the state of the weather.

Solas smiled at him patiently.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“If you consider a breach of consciousness to be the death of one’s self before, and the birth of a new self after, perhaps. Ah, but I think I shall save the philosophy for the next Trevelyan, as he is more likely to appreciate it.”

Dorian threw his book at Solas’s retreating figure as he left, but the damned apostate hobo was too quick, and the tome fell uselessly to the dirt.

Trevelyan sat there on his haunches for a bit, looking at the book. “Hm. A whole day before I die.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

He glanced over at the reproach, eyes blank as though not understanding it. As though there was some key component missing between them, the part that allowed them to communicate with each other.

Abruptly, he stood. “I think—I need to take a walk.”

Shooting pain from one of his earlier injuries arced through Dorian’s side. “What?”

“I won’t be long. I’ll stay in the general camp area, I just need air.”

“But—”

He didn’t wait to hear what Dorian had to say. He just left.

Dorian watched him go for a moment, swallowing down the bitterness in the back of his throat. For a moment, seeing the tent flap swing shut, he felt nothing at all. Just sat back to ease the tension on his body and steady his breathing. It was only when he started to tell himself, “ _It’s fine, he just needs time”_ that he began to feel truly miserable.

Then he crawled into his bedroll like a slug, simply wishing he had some whiskey to obliviate himself until the next morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost to the point where the whole fic is finished! When that happens there will only be a week between posts, to give time for revision.


	14. Requiring a More Refined Touch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve come around to Vivienne as a character but her perspective is frankly the hardest for me to write, so this chapter might be a little bit shorter and have less content than the others, sorry.

Lady Fleur’s summer house was not in good condition when they arrived.

It was just past the border into Orlais, an hour’s journey or so from when they started. A detour that Vivienne had suggested herself. The home was long abandoned at this point—the family who owned it had bet on Celene winning the Civil War and paid dearly with their lives—but it could provide both safe lodging against whatever else might seek to disrupt them and a good surface to work on. Solas had insisted that they could just as easily perform the ritual in the dirt, but he was outvoted by absolutely everyone.

The trip was uneventful. Unlike the day previous they did not run afoul of any feral bands of Templars or highwaymen, and it wasn’t long at all until they were inside the grove that spread in a wide half-circle over the summer house.

Vivienne clucked her tongue at the state of the place while the rest of them set up camp, running a brief inspection to make sure nothing foul had taken up residence in there while the owners were away. Furniture had been upended and ransacked, paintings torn, draperies ripped down. Clear signs of looting, which frankly had to be expected when there weren’t any basic security enchantments over the house’s threshold. Luckily the looters had moved on, and the structure was sound enough to keep any animals from entering in their stead.

Dorian was pointedly ignoring The Iron Bull with an air that bordered on venomous, so when they were finally ready to get started on the ritual she sent the qunari out to run security patrols with his Chargers for the time being. There was nothing he could contribute to their efforts in any case.

Preparing was faster inside the outdoor pavilion, once the patio furniture had been discarded, and it took the three of them only half an hour to finish with the glyphs necessary. For an ordinary spell Vivienne wouldn’t have even bothered putting them down physically. But this was not like in battle, when one could will the markings to appear with a comfortable degree of accuracy and move on--a process like this was delicate, and even the slightest disruption in concentration could ruin the symbols involved.

Trevelyan sat cross-legged in the very center of the glyph circle, twiddling his thumbs and examining the markings with an interested but glazed look. In this way, he was consistent. Magic fascinated him, but oftentimes he simply failed to understand its more complex workings. He could recognize _that_ something worked, but not always _how._

He hastily stood when they got ready, posture rigid and his hands behind his back. She could see he was nervous—he was steadily twirling her ring around his finger, eyes fixed on the ground.

When they first began, he froze up entirely. The floor around his feet lit up, illuminating him in the morning light so that barely a single shadow remained on him as the magic began to thrum with energy. The light coursed up, over the contours of his body, until it at least reached the seam of his jaw, and there it—fractured. She could see the hex then, and felt a sudden thrill. The magic at play was… _complex._

Obviously it was very rare for Circle study to ever tap into magic that affected the mind. Even preventative measures like the Litany of Adralla were heavily restricted, ostensibly to discourage blood magic from those who believed it an easy defense (though she was certain it was also to maintain the monopoly on countering such magics that the Templars currently held). As such she had less opportunity than she would like to dissect such spells.

The ritual counterspell went into action immediately, and it was _fascinating_ to watch it work. First it illuminated the hex that it was acting against, and so she got to see exactly what they were dealing with. The magic was a noxious green, like poisoned smoke, and it practically wrapped itself all around Trevelyan’s head. It pulsed dangerously, but not in any consistent pattern—the flashes were erratic, reactive, and she wondered if it was indeed constantly readjusting itself to suppress specific thoughts and memories rather than just blanketly pushing them down. Each line was full of ornate symbols, writing that looked very much like ancient Tevene in structure.

As she watched, the interweaving streams of magic were handily undone as though they were a mere child’s flower crown in the wind.

…And then they sprang back together again.

A faint frown twitched onto Vivienne’s face.

Once more that weave of magic was undone, scattering apart like a horde of flies in a marsh. Trevelyan bent over, hands over his temples. He made a sound as the spell reasserted itself with just as much vigor as before, a faint wail from the back of his throat. The next time those complex symbols were unspooled, blood started trickling from his nose in a thin stream.

She didn’t need to say anything. The rest of them saw it too, Dorian dropping his contribution to the mana pool first and Solas last. Without anything to hold him up any longer, Trevelyan simply crumpled as the glow of the glyph beneath him faded. Dorian ran to him.

Solas was the first to break the silence, letting out a curse in Elvish. “—It seems the spell is more tightly cast than we realized.”

Trevelyan bobbed a little in place, his hand twitching as he sat up. He said something that was little more than a garbled mess of syllables before managing to utter, “M fine.”

“The process is not wrong. It is doing as intended. But something is causing the initial hex to perpetuate itself as it’s being dismantled.” Solas mused, no longer paying attention to Trevelyan’s state. “If we could just amplify the power being channeled by the glyph—"

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Vivienne snapped, clacking her heel against the tile of the overgrown pavilion. “Look at the Inquisitor. The clashing of magic is scrambling his mind worse than the initial spell. This is a brute force solution for a matter that requires precision and tact. There is a _reason_ these kinds of magic are outlawed.”

“I hate to say this, but I find myself in agreement with the Iron Lady,” Dorian chimed in, looking over Trevelyan with unguarded worry. “It’s causing him pain. Even if increasing the pressure of the counterspell were to unseal his memories temporarily, the snapback could seriously harm his mind. If it hasn’t already.”

Trevelyan fell against him, still blustering, “Am find I sed.”

“Of course you are correct,” Solas said, in a tone that was clearly an attempt to cover for the fact that he had been bitterly outvoted again. “I am merely eager to see this matter resolved. It is very important that Trevelyan regain himself as quickly as possible. Forgive my rashness.”

“Rashness is the hallmark of all apostates, darling. No forgiveness necessary,” Vivienne sniffed, gratified by the sourness that crossed Solas’ expression.

With him back in his place she turned to the center of the glyph, where Dorian was trying (unsuccessfully) to get Trevelyan back on his feet, cleaning the blood off his face with a handkerchief and checking his vitals. Stray magic still lingered in the air, sparkling lightly around the two of them.

With just a few quick strides she was there, putting a hand on Dorian’s shoulder and speaking more sharply. “I forget, dear—are you the one here who is most versed in healing magic, hm?”

He shot her a look of pure hatred.

It was response enough, Vivienne waving a hand in dismissal. “If you cannot help, then you are just getting in my way, darling. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.”

Dorian’s only response was a short, clipped, “Fine.” Then he left, scuffing the glyph with his boot on his way out.

Some of the tension in her deflated as he walked away.

Dorian spent too long fussing over Trevelyan. Too much time worrying for him.

He wasn’t being nearly cautious enough. She was no fool. She saw how he had looked yesterday, still looked today, in fact. And how nonplussed Trevelyan had been by it. Dorian might have been letting his personal feelings get in the way of his threat assessment, but Vivienne saw things clearly enough. She would be fine. Handling him now was little different than their initial back and forth in Haven, after all.

Trevelyan was a thing of detachment and amorality, but unlike the rabid bandits they fought who seemed to feel the same, he also desired order and decorum. A “right” way to conduct oneself, and a “wrong” one. Killing was not an issue but there were times when wanton slaughter was _impolite and impractical_ —and though he did not realize these principles were there inside him, they proved easy to nurture. A word in his ear, a nudge in the right direction—simply to remind him of the pragmatic value of good behavior. All she had to do was repeat the process from before.

Though it stung a little. She had gotten…used to the way things were. And there were moments between them that…she couldn’t repeat, nor did she want to.

_“I don’t know what to say. I’ve never watched someone I love die,” he said quietly._

She hadn’t been expecting…

She could see the fear in him as she leaned down to start her healing, the way his shoulders hiked and his eyes widened just a touch. The counterspell had hurt him, it was clear. In a way that perhaps he was not used to being hurt by magic, or perhaps at least couldn’t remember any other instance of. And perhaps it was a good thing, perhaps it would put in him a caution she'd always found sorely lacking, but...

Would this affect how he saw her later?

Would he no longer look upon her with that precious awe, the eyes of a man who did not regard her with fear or cool respect but glee for what she could accomplish?

Would he look on her now as someone who had nearly unraveled him in an attempt to solve a problem she was ill-equipped to understand?

Would she ever see the man that she knew as a friend again? Would he never return?

\--No.

No.

Ah, they had almost snuck up on her. She told her feelings to go sit in the corner until she was ready for them. Bury worry, bury failure, bury fear. They would not help her.

Trevelyan didn’t notice the momentary way her smile had twisted. She reached out a hand to hold his chin and he bucked slightly, like a dog tugging on a leash, but went still as she began the healing magic. The wounds weren’t visible—it was trickier to gauge exactly how much energy to pour in, but she made do by keeping her attention on the glazed quality in his eyes.

As they began to clear and turned on her again she began to speak, smiling. “Feeling better?”

“Better. Yes.” Though his speech was still a touch halting his eyes were growing more focused, gaze probing and sharp. “I only feel slightly different. That didn’t work at all, did it?”

“Fret not, my dear. We love a good challenge, don’t we?”

“Not necessarily this kind of challenge.” He was quiet again, thoughtful, before suddenly declaring, “You were worried about me.”

She deftly covered up the jolt in her heart with a derisive snort. “We certainly can’t have an Inquisition without the Inquisitor.”

“Surely you could get a new Inquisitor.”

The notion was almost laughable. All of the work was centered around Trevelyan. All of the plays she had made, all of the connections they had established—they revolved around the trust that they had cultivated in Trevelyan himself as a figurehead. A double-edged sword, certainly. As long as he was in good standing, his presence was a credit to all of them, and Vivienne knew that her involvement in his inner circle was part of that. But if he should ever fall from grace…

Instead of replying out of the sudden whirlwind of buzzing strategy and contingency plans in her mind, she gave a pointed look to his hand, which was currently glowing with such intensity that it shown through the seams of his glove.

Trevelyan let out a swift breath and stood, no wobbling in his posture this time. “Right.”

She nodded, satisfied with her work. “We shall take some time for you to recover, while we formulate our next moves. The idea was for me to leave once this step was complete—but I think I shall remain for another day longer, at least.”

“We have Marcus left now, don’t we?” There was a painful eagerness to his words, and she caught a breath as she examined his face once more. It wasn’t affection, it wasn’t the same color as the way he cavorted with Dorian, not caring who saw or what they would think. It was…needier. “That was the plan, right? We’re going to find him?”

“You are. I myself have every intention of finding the Tevinter rat and solving the problem more directly. –Just please bear in mind, you may not find the reunion you’re imagining, Lord Trevelyan.”

“Oh I’m sure he won’t be even remotely happy to see me.” In spite of his words, Trevelyan appeared relieved, running a hand through his hair. “He was always a very rigid recruit. Always followed the rules to the letter. Didn’t smile much. Didn’t like games. –It made him easier to—handle. Predict.”

“Always a useful quality in one’s associates,” she agreed, giving him one last look over. Then, more pointedly, “And an even better trait in one’s enemies. –Careful, you look rather pale yet.”

“I’m always pale.”

“Then perhaps we should fetch some rouge to put color in your cheeks the next time we are in Val Royeaux.” At his incredulous glance, she smiled. “Only joking, my dear.”

She kept one eye on Trevelyan through the rest of the day, though no other side effects appeared to surface in that time. When they were not monitoring his condition she led the handful of them to investigate what remained of the villa, hunting for salvageable materials while Dorian gave a patchy account of what had happened the time he and Trevelyan were locked up in Chateau d’Onterre out in the Emerald Graves. Occasionally Trevelyan would put a hand to his temple as Dorian talked, as though warding off a headache, but he would appear fine only moments later, and say nothing when asked.

In the end, the evening was a wash. The villa would have been perfectly lovely to stay in a few months previous. Now, it was overridden with fleas and vermin.

So, to add insult to injury, they still had to sleep outdoors.


	15. But Always Keep it on a Leash

_He is kneeling in the snow, his wrists bound behind his back._

_Awful energy bubbles up inside him with no outlet, and he giggles as they hold him down. The man with them is Venatori and he is missing some pieces of him, an ear, a bit of his cheek. His eyes are bright and intense and he has a book open in his hands. Trevelyan thinks that maybe he has killed him once before._

_“I’m going to rip you into little pieces,” he says deliriously. The left side of his face feels cold and sticky. “It’s going to be so much fun.”_

_“Careful. This one bites. And it’ll hurt, too.”_

_“I know. How do you think I lost the ear?”_

_Trevelyan beams at the compliment. A bit of drool leaks out of his mouth, the world spinning around him as he faces the other. “Come on. Fight me. One on one, like old times. I dare you. --I’ll kill you and I’ll laugh.”_

_The Venatori starts to chant, his voice rhythmic and relaxing. Trevelyan finds himself swaying slightly to the rise and fall of his voice, eyelids flickering. It’s very—it’s—He shakes his head, reaches into himself for the energy again, the one that makes him a slick killing machine instead of a vulnerable human being._

_“Make sure you have a good grip on him.”_

_A hand on his jaw suddenly enrages him, makes him feel violated, and he starts to thrash and swear. The hands on his shoulders push down hard, and there is nowhere for him to squirm, no way to pull his arms loose without dislocating them. The chains are brittle with rust though, and—yes—he can feel them begin to give--_

_When he bares his teeth, calloused fingers move to pry his mouth open._

When Trevelyan opened his eyes he saw nothing but darkness, though he could feel Dorian Pavus shivering against his side. The Tevinter had made mention several times of the fact that he was overly cold in this climate, but it felt almost gratifying to see evidence of it in action—as though a connection had been made there, some expression of truth in its continuity. Yes, Dorian was cold, therefore it made sense for him to be shivering. Something in the world made sense.

Part of his mind suggested that he press up against him to alleviate that shivering, but he ignored it as he had many times now. Though it was stronger and more insistent than it had been before. Like his insides were shouting at him, instead of a distant murmur.

Trevelyan sat up after a few minutes indicated he would not be falling asleep again anytime soon, mind still plagued with the feeling of being burnt, of being pulled apart and put back together several times in quick succession. Bits and pieces of memory clung to him through the veil of sleep—the taste of blood in his mouth, the scent of steel, words chanted in a tongue he only dimly recognized. But none of it formed a solid picture. Not long enough for him to understand.

The night air was pleasant as he left the tent, sliding on his boots and grabbing a few knives to take with him. Not his bow and arrow. Not this time. He needed something more visceral than the pride of good aim. Something that he would feel in his stomach instead of his chest. There were trees nearby—a thin forest near the border of Fereldan, nothing spectacular but it was dense enough for his purposes.

As he crossed it, he thought of the woods outside of his father’s estate in Ostwick.

Bright, wispy green in the sunlight, and then a dreary, soaked blue in the rain. The rain had always been his favorite. It prevented him from staying out for long but it was so vivid it almost hurt to look at. Best was just after the rain, when the world was still damp and the sky was littered with rainbows. He would trek out after storms and see which trees had been uprooted, which animals had died by falling branches, which hunters had gotten lost in the onslaught.

Since his tender years he had been fascinated by animals devouring each other. Maggots roiling inside the corpse of a bird, wolves tearing flesh free from deer. All day he would hunt for more sights to sicken him inside until he was seeing eyeless rabbits in his dreams. That part of him he’d learned to tune out would always hope that the latest horror he had discovered out there by himself would be enough to keep him indoors and behave like a good little boy, but it was always what drew him back instead. And when observing nature in all its brutal glory stopped being enough, he would start participating.

When he was old enough to self-examine he would wonder where it came from. As near as he could tell it only started after the Templars had taken Evie away, but he had no idea how the two things logically fit together. Perhaps he just got old enough for it. Perhaps it was waiting inside him, waiting for him to be alone. It was at that point, after all, that he stopped desiring human company.

For the most part, at least.

As sickening as was the process of putrefaction, the actual moment of death, of destruction, was an exhilarating rush. There was no malice in it. He never hated anything that he killed, even the ones that tried to kill him. He loved them—fell head over heels for the burning rush of pure joy that he experienced in the moment of triumph, one that was intensified the more danger he found himself in. As an adult he knew that he needed to stay in concert with the other animals, to know when not to kill, what to do with each kill, to keep from feeling wasteful and worthless and alone once the high was over. But back then he had been young, and his emotions had been so much simpler, and after hours spent cooped up in boredom or harshly criticized by his trainers and peers, all he’d wanted to feel was joy.

It was odd to think of, that he had less of a stomach for mindless cruelty than when he was a boy.

A soft noise halted his steps, and he paused there among the underbrush, simply waiting. Instincts he didn’t remember honing took over for him, sharpening to the sound around him and what it meant. A rustle, the padding of feet on dirt—

His hand shot out, and he caught something mid-leap as it was bounding around him. Prey that had practically thrown itself at him.

It was a nug. Unafraid, even as he held it in his grip, dark marble glass eyes wide and floppy ears up and alert. Its little paws—the creepiest little feet he had ever seen, like human hands—gripped at him loosely, squeezing against the fabric of his glove.

Nugs were so small. He was positive he could pull all of its skin off in one solid jerk, like a rabbit.

“Well, aren’t you adorable,” he cooed, and it snuffled in his face curiously. The closer it got the louder his insides screamed to destroy it, the more acutely he could see it dribbling with blood. There was a little part of him, so small and insignificant, that would bleed with it, but he didn’t care. It was just the whining of a child getting too attached to his toys.

His heart began to pick up. There was a drumming of dreadful anticipation, his body waiting to bring him his euphoria. Killing in cold blood was different from battle, different from the burst of energy that carried him through when his life was at risk. It was more like the tide—it always receded first. Always made him feel sick, first. But only at first.

The nug squirmed when he grabbed its head, preparing to break its neck, but it couldn’t resist. It couldn’t stop him. The rest of the world began to fade away, growing darker and darker.

\--Then a voice, cutting through the fog and the darkness like a blade, “Don’t.”

He dropped the creature with a startled cry, and it darted off into the underbrush.

The voice had seemed to come from both nowhere and everywhere, and he whirled around in search of it.

There was a tall, gangly youth standing in a moonbeam between the trees behind him.

Trevelyan was too surprised to retaliate. The boy’s skin was so bloodless that it practically glowed, his face obscured by the shadow of an enormous hat on his head. He had the lean look of someone starving to death, but he didn’t move with any clear trouble. In fact his motions were smooth and graceful, a stillness to him that was disjointed and…disturbing.

“Oh! They—” The boy stepped closer, a cold hand reaching out nearly to touch his forehead. Trevelyan couldn’t help but pull back somewhat at the gliding gesture. “They got at it. But they didn’t get it all the way. It clings too tightly, and tearing it up tore at you. I’m sorry, I wasn’t fast enough to warn them. I’m slower now that I’m real.”

For almost a minute, neither of them spoke. There was a vacuum of noise, in fact, where the whole forest held its breath and waited for one of them to break the silence.

Trevelyan leaned forward a little with a plaintive, “Do I know you?”

The boy gave a start—or at least, a gesture that was intended to look like it but fell slightly short. “I’m sorry. I forgot. I’m Cole. I’m here to help.”

He’d seen him, he realized. In Skyhold, lurking at the edges of their gatherings like a stalker. It wasn’t that he _hadn’t_ noticed him before—Trevelyan had looked directly at him, more than once. But something about his presence made him want to…forget. Push the memory of his face far away.

But now that Trevelyan noticed it, he ripped the compulsion away with vicious force and smiled. “Help who?” he asked, patiently.

“You.”

“Me?” He laughed, amused. “I was doing just fine.”

“Not with the nug. I mean you. Your falling back. Your being worse. Your not remembering.”

“And what do you know about me?”

Cole(?) fixed Trevelyan with a long, hard stare, and then he started to speak rapidly. “ _Candles burned down to the wick, stomach aches but my body is shaking too hard to move, Mother pushes Evie back under the water—”_

“—You’ve made your point.”

“I have seen a lot of you,” the boy breathed, and the words hung there between the two of them as he said it. “You think because it doesn’t hurt all the time that it doesn’t hurt at all, but you’re wrong. You do things to keep the pain away.”

He gestured to the underbrush. Trevelyan saw with some surprise that the creature he had been right about to slaughter was snuffling in their direction again. He took a step towards it, but as his boot snapped a twig in the grass it fled.

“You want things you can understand, want to take back control.” The words were forceful, clear, and they rung inside his mind slightly. But as he was experiencing this, suddenly it stopped. Suddenly the boy sounded human again. Something that might have been mirth slid into his tone. “You can’t get it from a nug. They don’t control anything.”

“Don’t laugh at me.”

“There are other ways.”

Trevelyan scowled, plucking an embrium flower from nearby and ripping off its petals one by one. “Hunting _is_ my other way. People _object less_ when it’s just animals. Though I suppose you’re right, a common nug doesn’t pose much of a challenge. Maybe I’ll try random youths wandering around the woods at night next.”

His threat fell on deaf ears. “Hunting is about more than that. It’s not just killing. You give it purpose, and that purpose keeps you from falling when it’s over. It makes it feel better. Who taught you? Did they know why you needed it?”

Who taught him?

Well it…

It wasn’t his father. His father had people to hunt for him. It wasn’t his mother, or any of his siblings. None of the servants would have dared. His tutors were more concerned with his ability to spar and counter magic than dealing with animals. He didn’t have the social graces to interact much with any of the other hunters in the city. And it most certainly had not been the Templars.

“I…” He sat there, holding the remains of the flower in his hand. His mind ground to a halt. “I can’t remember.”

“You pretend it’s not important to you, but you carry it anyway.”

He was surprised to find that he wasn’t knocking against an impossible wall this time, instead more wading through a thick bog that tugged at him as he moved. The information seemed almost on the tip of his tongue, a fleeting light that he could reach for but not grab.

“An elf,” he said mechanically, barely hearing himself. “Dalish.”

Rules. There had to be rules. The rules kept him safe, even if he was the only one who saw them. Ways to bind himself, in chains that he found pleasing. But they didn’t come from nothing. They had come from watching, and learning, and…suffering. A few, he remembered the days they were added to the list. Others…escaped him.

But it must be there. Because how could he remember a conclusion but not the events leading up to it? What kind of sense did that make? The rules for hunting were like the rules for people, where just because something was meant to die didn’t mean you had to be rude to it. You didn’t kill when it wasn’t necessary, even if maybe you wanted to, because it represented a wasted opportunity. And when you were done with a life, you took what you needed off the body or that too would be a regret, something to spoil the work.

Though frankly he didn’t think that Revassan had imagined applying that to looting the corpses of people you killed in battle--

\--Rev.

Yes, that was his name.

Charming, roguish, smiled in a way that had made his stomach feel funny...

He’d left after just one summer, and despite Trevelyan’s entreaties to return, never came back. He’d poached at least a quarter of all the deer on the estate, and Trevelyan’s father had been _furious._ Probably a good chunk of that quarter had been while teaching Trevelyan how to do the same, eyes rolling in exasperation one minute and laughing gleefully the next. The first person he’d met who stood _outside._ Who’d made him feel…

The fog thickened again, a shooting pain in his mind overpowering any joy at having regained that particular memory.

“He called me a ‘ridiculous shem’ and told me I was wasting the meat,” Trevelyan related in a mutter. “So I learned how to stop wasting the meat. Simple.”

“He left you.”

“It wasn’t like we were in love.”

“You missed him. He saw what you were. That’s all you wanted. That’s why you remembered.”

“I _don’t_ remember.” He was becoming increasingly aware that he was sounding less like some grand Inquisitor character and more a spoiled, sullen teenager. He reached for another embrium bloom. “…If I don’t remember, then it doesn’t matter.”

Intentions a mystery, the boy started to pick from the bunch himself, pulling flower after flower with steady purpose. “That’s how I wanted to be. To not let any of it stick. To never let them see me. I’m not, anymore. _You_ …showed me it was better that way. Better to learn. To remember. To hold onto the fullness.”

There was something soft in Trevelyan’s chest. It was unbearable, and he refused to speak, focusing intently on pulling the petals.

The boy stepped closer, though not within his bubble of personal space. His voice didn’t change, and yet it also seemed to be just a hair quieter. “…I know it’s hard. It hurts more. But, _they_ care about you. You care about them too. You don’t need to hide from it.”

Trevelyan snorted.

“It’s true. They help you leave your head. They make it not so dark inside.”

“I like the dark.”

“You’ll see.” Suddenly the boy was dropping something light and sweet-smelling on his head. “It’s worth it. You’ll feel better. Just, don’t kill the nugs. They just want to be your friend. You should focus on killing the people who want to kill you, who would hurt other people. …That’s more helpful.”

“Helpful to who?” Trevelyan demanded, tearing off the head-covering to examine it. It was…embrium. All tied together into a thick, braided circlet.

And there was another noise that could have been human, this time a whine of exasperation, a point uncommunicated. “To _you_. Help you help other people, help yourself. It makes sense. It… _was_ …making sense. I’m sorry I can’t explain it. You more have to…feel it. And feeling is hard. It…takes time. Sorry.”

He looked at the flower crown in his hands again. He’d crushed it without meaning to, petals stuck to his gloves. These flowers were perennials—surviving through the bitter heat of summer and the dry, ugly winter just to be plucked for some meaningless little gesture. One that went unappreciated, at that. It was life. The kind of thing that normally amused him, but right now made his stomach hurt.

He turned to give a retort.

But Trevelyan was alone.

_He is walking down the rickety plank from the boat, dressed in the clothing that his mother packed in his bag instead of the ill-fitting Templar fare. There should be the shame of failure in his gut but all he feels is irritation at the thought of seeing his parents again. That, at least, he hadn’t missed._

_The fishermen are slicing their catches from earlier that morning, and he finds himself stranded on the floating dock watching as they disembowel with their slick knives and high gloves, carve away the skin and package up the thick slabs of flesh for the market._

_It’s just like how they prepare food in the kitchens back at the estate. The cooks don’t let him near the knives, but he’s told them over and over again all he wants is to do is help with the meat. All he wants to do is cut things that are already dead, so it won’t stick in his stomach afterward._

_He stands there hypnotized until his escort shoves him forward with an impatient cough, and the spell is broken. Up they go through the drizzling path home, and Ostwick has not changed one jot since last he’d stepped on its shores._

_Neither, he thinks, has he._

Trevelyan grunted, his head throbbing as he walked back to camp, murderous impulses not satisfied but too exhausted at this point to pursue them. For now, anyway. Somehow they had opened a gate, and while it wasn’t actually the precursor to a flood, there was a trickling flow of…images to contend with.

Sometimes he understood where the fog parted, knew how to ground it. Mostly though they were contextless sensations he couldn’t place. Like an outsider looking into someone else’s memories. And unfortunately for this Inquisition, they were all old things. Nothing of the last year.

The boy was waiting for him when he returned. He smiled, and it was the most crooked, broken, _wrong_ smile Trevelyan had ever seen.

“Cole, was it?” he said amiably, patting him on the shoulder. “May I sit with you?”


End file.
